CENTENNIAL 


Methodist  Book  Concern 


DEDICATION 


ubiishing  ^  Mission  Building 


1890. 


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http://www.archive.org/details/centennialofmethOOnewyiala 


^ENTENNIAL  OF  THE 


Methodist  Book  Concern 


DEDICATION  OF  THE  NEW 


Publishing  and  Mission  Building 


Methodist  Episcopal  Church 


NEW  YORK: 

H  UNT    &     EATON 

150  Fifth  Avenue 

1890 


f3K 

^4  ci. 


PREFATORY     NOTE. 


The  Centennial  of  the  Methodist  Book  Concern  having  been 
celebrated  with  appropriate  exercises  in  connection  with  the 
formal  opening  of  the  new  Publishing  and  Mission  Building, 
February  11  and  13,  1890,  it  seems  desirable  to  put  in  perma- 
nent form  a  brief  historical  record  of  the  various  steps  taken  in 
the  new  building  enterprise,  together  with  the  addresses  made 
at  the  Dedication  Services  and  at  the  Mass-meeting  folloM^iug 
those  services.  We  therefore  issue  this  little  volume  to  be 
placed  in  the  archives  of  the  Book  Concern  and  Missionary 
Society  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  presented  to 
Methodist  Historical  Societies  and  Educational  Institutions. 

Hunt  &  Eaton. 
New  York,  Feh.  20,  1890. 


CENTENNIAL 

OF  THE 

Methodist  Book  Concern. 

AND 

DEDICATION 

OF     THE 

NEW  PUBLISHING  AND  MISSION  BUILDING. 

Brief  History  of  t/ie  New  Building  Enterprise. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Book  Committee  held  in  February, 
1887,  the  Book  Agents  at  New  York  asked  authority  to  sell 
the  two  properties  then  owned  and  to  purchase  a  site  and  erect 
tliereon  an  edifice  adapted  to  the  demands  of  a  Publishing 
House  and  tlie  wants  of  the  Missionary  Society.  The  Book 
(Committee  unanimously  approved  the  proposition,  as  did  also 
the  Board  of  Managei-s  of  the  Missionary  Society  sliortly  there- 
after. A  Commission  was  appointed  to  carry  out  the  measures 
proposed,  consisting  of  AV.  II.  Olin,  D.D.,  of  the  AVyoming 
Conference ;  Homer  Eaton,  D.D.,  of  the  Troy  Conference ;  T.  N. 
Boyle,  D.D.,  of  tlie  Pittsburg  Conference ;  C.  J.  Clark,  D.D.,  of 
the  Maine  Conference  ;  Ck^m  Studebaker,  of  Indiana,  and  tlie 
Book  Agents  and  Local  Connnittee  at  New  York.  Subse(piently 
Ct.  S.  Chadbourne,  D.D.,  of  the  New  England  Conference, 
L.  C.  Queal,  D.D.,  of  the  Central  New  York  Conference,  and 
Hon.  P.  C.  Lounsbury,  of  New  York,  were  appointed  in  place 
of  Drs.  Olin,  Clark,  and  Boyle,  who  had  retired  from  the  Book 


CENTENNIAL    OF   THE 


Coininittee.  A  Building  Committee  was  also  appointed,  con- 
sisting of  the  Book  Agents  and  Local  Committee,  represent- 
ing the  Book  Concern  at  New  York,  and  J.  M.  Reid,  D.D., 
^l.  D'C.  Crawford,  D.D.,  and  J.  S.  McLean,  Esq.,  of  New  York, 
representing  the  Missionary  Society.  Mr.  J.  M.  Phillips  was 
made  Chairman,  and  Dr.  Eeid  Secretary,  of  the  Building  Com- 
mittee. After  the  death  of  Mr.  Phillips,  Dr.  Homer  Eaton, 
who  had  been  elected  Book  Agent,  became  ex  officio  a  member 
and  Mr.  William  Iloyt  was  appointed  Chairman  of  the 
Jiuilding  Committee. 

The  new  site  on  Fifth  Avenue  was  purchased  Oct.  31,  1887, 
and  during  the  General  Conference  in  1888,  on  May  23,  the 
corner-stone  of  the  new  structure  was  laid  l)y  Bishop  Bowman, 
the  senior  Bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  A  very 
large  audience  was  present,  including  the  Bishops,  the  members 
of  the  General  Conference,  the  Mayor  of  the  city  of  New  York, 
and  many  other  distinguished  persons.  Mr.  J.  M.  Phillips, 
(chairman  of  the  Building  Committee,  presided,  and  addresses 
were  made  by  Colonel  E.  F.  Bitter,  of  Indianapolis,  Bishop  Foss, 
and  General  Clinton  B.  Fisk.  A  brief  historic  record  of  the 
Book  Concern,  including  a  catalogue  of  its  publications,  was 
deposited  in  the  corner-stone. 

Later  the  lot  on  Twentieth  Street,  adjacent  to  the  new 
structure,  then  in  process  of  erection,  was  purchased  for  the 
use  of  the  Book  Concern,  and  the  building  thereon  will  be  re- 
tained, the  two  upper  stories  to  be  used  by  the  engraving  depart- 
ment and  the  two  lower  stories  as  a  residence  for  the  engineer. 

The  new  edifice,  though  not  fully  completed  at  the  time,  was 
occupied  Nov.  1,  1889,  by  the  various  departments  connected 
with  the  Book  Concern  and  Missionary  Society,  except  the 
manufacturing  and  printing  departments,  which  were  removed 
thither  in  January,  1890. 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONGERN. 


The  main  building  is  104  feet  3|-  inches  on  Fifth  Avenue 
and  170  feet  on  Twentieth  Street,  and,  inchiding  the  basement, 
is  180  feet  high,  embracing,  with  tlie  basement,  nine  stories. 
The  lirst  three  are  of  granite,  tlie  fourth,  fifth,  sixth,  and 
seventh  are  of  Baltimore  brick,  and  the  eighth  and  ninth  are 
of  granite  and  brick.  The  whole  structure  is  built  of  the  best 
material  throughout  and  is  fire-proof. 

The  Missionary  Society  owns  one  third  of  this  new  property, 
and  has  been  able  to  pay  for  it  without  using  any  of  the  con- 
tributions made  to  the  Society  for  its  general  and  current  work. 
The  sale  of  the  old  property  at  805  Broadway  and  200  Mul- 
berry Street  enabled  the  Agents  to  complete  their  two  thirds 
of  the  new  building  without  leaving  any  debt  upon  it. 


CENTENNIAL   OF   THE 


The  Dedication  of  the  Publishing  and  Mission  Building. 

F-KBRUAIi^Vr  11,    1^^90. 

All  day  all  through  the  building  workmen  and  employes 
Avere  busy  jiutting  things  to  rights  and  giving  the  last  touches 
here  and  tliere.  The  preparation  ended  only  after  tlie  spacious 
chapel  began  to  fill  for  the  services  at  7:30  P.  M.  It  is  a 
charming  room,  two  stories  in  heiglit,  with  a  gallery  across  the 
end ;  tastefully  carpeted,  seated  with  upholstered  opera-cliairs. 
The  softly-tinted  walls  were  decorated  with  fine  portraits  of 
Wesley,  Asbury,  Hedding,  Ezekiel  Cooper,  Durbin,  Curry, 
Wiley,  and  nearly  a  score  more  of  the  heroic  dead.  The  gallery- 
front  was  festooned  with  the  national  colors,  and  a  splendid  flag, 
which  the  day  after  floated  above  the  building,  a  present  from 
Mrs.  Kate  Yan  Dusen,  graced  the  wall  behind  the  platform. 

William  Hoyt,  Esq.,  chairman  of  the  Building  Committee, 
was  introduced  by  General  Fisk  as  president  of  the  evening. 
After  singing,  "  Hasten,  Lord,  the  glorious  time,"  Professor  A\". 
F.  Whitlock,  D.D.,  chairman  of  the  Western  Section  of  tlie 
Book  Committee,  addressed  the  tlirone  of  grace. 

Prayer  by  Rev.  Dr.  Whitlock. 

O  Father,  amid  all  the  many  gracious  blessings  that  thoii  hast 
bestowed  upon  us  we  come  to-night  especially  to  thank  thee 
for  thy  Church — the  Church  that  thou  didst  give  the  workl 
in  the  morning  of  time,  in  the  infancy  of  the  race ;  tlmt 
thou  hast  preserved  through  the  days  of  Abraham  and  Isaac 
and  Jacob  and  David  and  Daniel,  through  all  the  generations 
and  centuries  that  have  come  and  gone,  unto  our  day.  We  bless 
thee,   our  heavenly  Father,  for  all  the  institutions  that  have 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN. 


grown  up  witliin  thy  Church  and  have  served  to  elevate  our 
race  and  to  bring  glory  and  honor  to  thy  great  name.  And  we 
come  in  this  evening  hour  especially  to  thank  thee  for  the  in- 
terest represented  in  this  great  structure  and  upon  this  occasion. 
We  thank  thee  that  many  long  years  ago  tliou  didst  put  it  into 
the  thought  and  purpose  of  the  fathers  to  found  tliis  organiza- 
tion ;  and  we  bless  thee  that  they  sought  not  only  the  salvation 
of  the  people  whom  they  immediately  served,  but  the  salvation 
of  all  men  ;  and  we  bless  thee  that  they  sought  not  only  the  con- 
version of  the  world,  but  the  instruction  of  the  mind,  knowing 
that  all  its  powers  might  be  employed  in  the  great  work  that 
thou  hast  raised  up  to  thy  Church.  And  we  bless  thee  for  that 
faith  and  that  persistence  manifested  by  the  fathers  in  the  stand- 
ing to  this  age  of  these  institutions,  and  in  the  meeting  all  these 
discouragements  and  disasters.  We  bless  thee  for  the  great 
growth  of  these  organizations,  for  the  great  service  they  have 
rendered  the  Church  ;  we  bless  thee  that  in  these  organizations 
very  much  of  the  best  thought  and  feehng,  of  the  most  positive 
and  strong  convictions,  have  been  voiced  and  have  gone  out 
into  the  households  and  hearts  of  thy  people.  And  we  bless 
thee  that,  when  thy  Church  at  home  has  been  made  acquainted 
with  the  conditions  of  the  nations  that  have  been  sitting  in 
darkness,  they  have  undertaken  the  great  business  of  evangeliz- 
ing these  nations. 

We  bless  thee  that  thon  hast  heard  the  prayers  of  thy  people 
and  brought  prosperity  and  gi'eat  power  to  these  organizations. 
We  thank  thee,  Fatlier,  for  tlie  work  that  they  are  now  accom- 
plishing ;  that  in  tliis  center  of  thought  and  Christian  activity 
there  are  going  out  inflnences  and  agencies  that  are  blessing 
millions  of  homes.  We  thank  thee  that  they  are  blessing  not 
only  the  Church  at  home,  but  the  Church  abroad.  We  thank 
thee  that  here  thv  Church  tinds  defense  and  instruction  and 


10  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

encouragement.  We  thank  thee  that  here  is  interpreted  thy 
word,  and  that  tliese  interpretations  are  carried  to  very  many 
of  those  who  are  teaching  and  studying  thy  truth.  For  all 
these  things  we  praise  thy  name. 

We  bless  thee,  our  heavenly  Father,  that  thou  didst  put  it 
into  the  hearts  of  those  in  more  immediate  authority  to  select 
this  site  and  to  build  this  structure ;  that  thou  hast  been,  as 
we  believe,  at  the  head  of  this  enterprise  from  its  beginning 
until  this  evening  hour  ;  that  thou  wast  here  when  the  founda- 
tion-stones were  laid ;  and  that  thou  art  here  when  the  cap-stone 
is  brought  to  its  place  with  rejoicing.  Now,  bless  this  organi- 
zation, these  gi*eat  influences.  Bless  those  who  are  now  in 
charge ;  may  thy  special  blessing  be  with  these  Agents,  these 
Secretaries,  tliese  Boards  of  Control,  these  Committees,  so  that 
in  the  great  purposes  they  may  undertake  there  may  be  found 
the  progressive  thought  and  all  the  persistence  that  shall  lead 
thy  Church  out  into  still  greater  enterprises  and  make  it  a 
great  instrumentality  in  thy  hands  to  lead  the  nations  from 
darkness  into  light ;  and,  O  Lord,  we  eaniestly  beseech  that 
from  this  place  evermore  in  tlie  future  there  may  go  out  that 
pure  and  inspiring  and  spiritualized  thought  that  shall  serve 
to  instruct  and  build  up  thy  Church  everywhere.  Bless  the 
Church  here  represented  in  all  its  great  enterprises  and  all  its 
interests. 

We  thank  thee  for  the  prosperity  in  the  years  that  are  gone, 
for  its  present  success  and  power  in  the  earth,  and  we  pray  that 
its  power  may  be  increasingly  prospered  by  thee,  and  that  in 
the  immediate  future  we  may  realize  that  thou  art  coming  in 
M'ondi'ous  power  into  the  Church  and  blessing  it  in  all  its 
agencies.  Bring  us  into  the  closest  and  liveliest  sympathy  with 
thy  will ;  and  may  we  individually  so  live  that  when  we  come 
to  the  hour  of  death  we  may  then  know  because  thy  grace  has 


METHODIST  BOOK   CONCERN.  11 

been  imparted  to  us,  because  we  have  been  privileged  to  be  led 
by  thy  Spirit,  that  therefore  we  have  no  foe,  but  have  f ought  a 
good  fight  and  have  laid  up  treasure  in  lieaven  ;  and  unto  thee 
we  give  all  the  praise,  world  without  end.     Amen. 

Homer  Eaton,  D.D.,  led  in  the  responsive  reading  of  the 
122d  Psalm.  Following  this  General  Fisk  made  a  brief  ver- 
bal report  for  the  Building  Committee.  The  grounds  cost 
$450,000,  the  building  $550,000,  and  the  total  amount  is  pro- 
vided for.  In  excavating  for  the  foundation  the  bed  of  an  old 
river  was  struck,  entaihng  an  extra  cost  of  $17,000  to  go  down 
to  bed-rock.  He  referred  feelingly  to  the  committee  that 
bought  on  Broadway  and  Eleventh  Street  twenty  years  ago, 
only  two  of  whom — Judge  Fancher  and  George  I.  Seney — are 
now  living,  and  to  John  M.  Phillips,  who  was  until  his  death 
chairman  of  tliis  committee. 

Bishop  E.  G.  Andrews,  LL.D.,  was  the  first  speaker  on  the 
programme  for  the  evening. 

Address  by  Bishop  Andrews. 

Mk.  Chairman,  I  am  sure  that  the  Church  will  receive  from 
the  Building  Committee  this  structure  with  profound  satisfac- 
tion and  great  thankfulness.  We  are  reminded  of  that  great 
arcliitect  who  was  buried  beneath  the  pavement  of  the  mag- 
nificent temple  which  he  had  erected,  and  over  whose  grave 
were  put  the  words,  "  K  you  seek  his  monument,  look  ai'ound." 
So  think  we,  sir,  of  tliis  Building  Committee  and  of  their  great 
work.  You  will  pardon  me  though  I  say  this  in  your  presence, 
and  in  the  presence  of  these  other  brethren  who  with  you  have 
for  these  two  years  past  wrought  so  faithfully  to  the  end  now 
reached.  Neither  you  nor  they  have  given  to  the  Church  this 
service  in  order  to  secure  its  grateful  recognition.  But  we  who 
have  been  witnesses  of  the  constant  and  anxious  labors  you  have 


12  CENTENNIAL   OF  THE 

undergone,  of  the  burden  thus  assumed  and  patiently  borne 
by  men  already  overburdened,  must  be  permitted  to  acknowl- 
edge with  sincere  and  profound  thankfulness  the  debt  which  the 
Church  owes  to  you  for  the  work  thus  achieved.  We  rejoice 
in  the  unbroben  harmony  which  has  ruled,  as  we  are  informed, 
in  your  councils ;  and  we  congratulate  you  that  now  at  lengtli 
the  Building  Committee,  having  nobly  accomplished  its  aim, 
may  be  dissolved. 

Sir,  we  are  all  gratified  with  the  result.  AV^e  find  no  room 
for  criticism.  We  take  note  of  the  convenient  and  conspicuous 
location  of  this  edifice ;  of  its  massiveness,  stateliness,  and  the  chas- 
tened beauty  of  its  exterior ;  of  its  interioi",  so  spacious,  cheerful, 
convenient,  and  perfectly  supplied  with  all  modern  appliances  for 
comfort  and  the  easy  transaction  of  business ;  of  this  central  hall, 
the  Board-room,  so  admirably  proportioned,  so  finely  finished,  so 
well  adapted  to  the  great  missionary  and  ecclesiastical  uses  for 
which  it  is  set  apart ;  and  of  the  fact  that,  large  as  are  our  pres- 
ent publisliing  and  missionary  transactions,  there  is  ample  pro- 
vision for  their  future  growth  in  the  rooms  of  the  building  now 
leased  for  other  purposes.  And  with  great  satisfaction  also  do 
we  learn  from  the  report  of  the  Building  Committee  that  the 
great  cost  of  this  noble  edifice  is  provided  for  by  the  sale  of 
the  properties  on  Broadway  and  Mulberry  Street,  and  by  other 
funds  already  accumiilated. 

This  evening,  sir,  the  whole  Church,  which  is  here  represented, 
accepts  from  the  Book  Committee  and  from  the  Missionary 
Board,  through  the  Building  Committee  appointed  by  them, 
this  fruit  of  a  hundred  years  of  our  church  life,  and  consecrates 
it  to  the  Lord  of  the  Church  for  yet  larger  and  nobler  results. 
With  thanks  to  all  who  have  wrought  in  this  present  enterprise, 
with  grateful  remembrance  of  the  honored  and  beloved  men 
who  in  past  years  wrought  well  upon  the  foundations  and  walls 


METHODIST  BOOK   CONCERK  13 

of  our  large  publishing  and  missionary  organizations,  but  who 
have  now  gone  to  "  the  majority,"  above  all,  with  gratitude  to 
Almighty  God,  who  has  so  signally  prospered  the  designs  of  his 
people,  and  with  high  purpose  of  a  better  and  more  effective 
service,  the  Methodist  Church  now  enters  fully  upon  the  use  of 
this  noble  structure. 

Would  that  there  were  associated  with  us  on  this  happy  evening 
some  whom  the  occasion  naturally  calls  to  our  remembrance ! 
Perhaps  the  wish  is  unnecessary.  Perhaps,  sir,  in  the  mansions 
where  they  now  dwell  they  share  our  joy  and  also  remember 
witli  thankfulness  tlie  part  they  were  permitted  to  take  in  the 
long  preparation  for  this  hour.  Two  of  them,  the  calm  and 
judicious  Phillips,  and  the  princely  J.  B.  Cornell,  both  mem- 
bei*s  of  the  Building  Committee,  but  falling  before  its  work  was 
complete,  have  already  been  named.  And  we  tenderly  recall 
others  connected  with  the  purchase  of  the  Broadway  property, 
as  Durbin,  McCHntock,  Harris,  Carlton,  Curry,  Oliver  Hoyt, 
and  W.  W.  Cornell.  And  yet  others  of  that  and  of  an  earlier 
generation  rise  before  us  whose  hfe-history  was  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  beginning  of  our  publishing  and  missionary 
work  ;  but  time  does  not  permit  special  reference  to  them.  Their 
record  is  on  high. 

Naturally  to-night  we  take  happy  notice  of  the  fact  that  great 
progress  has  been  made  during  the  century  which  now  closes  in 
the  history  of  the  Book  Concern  and  during  the  seventy  years 
of  our  Missionary  Society  organization. 

Tlie  enterprise  of  establishing  a  publishing  house  required 
in  the  then  weak  and  struggling  Methodist  Church  no  ordinary 
faith  and  courage.  No  wonder  that  they  called  it  a  Book  Con- 
cern. Possibly  some  have  not  seen  the  appropriateness  of  this 
title.  But,  sir,  you  are  a  business  man,  and  I  beg  to  submit  this 
proposition  to  you :  Given  a  new  and  wholly  untried  business, 


14  CENTENNIAL   OP  THE 

given  a  total  borrowed  cajDital  of  $600,  given  the  expenditure  of 
the  entire  capital  npon  the  printing  and  binding  of  books  by  snn- 
dry  job-offices  in  Philadelphia  ;  given  the  distribution,  on  credit, 
of  all  these  books  in  the  saddle-bags  of  itinerants  from  Massachu- 
setts to  Georgia ;  given  a  new  enterprise  thus  conditioned,  and 
could  any  one  devise  a  better  name  for  it  than  Book  Concern  ? 
They  must  have  been  under  great  concern  of  mind  in  those 
days,  and  especially  when,  after  ten  years,  John  Dickins  certified 
that  the  indebtedness  had  risen  to  $4,500,  the  assets  being  still 
altogether  in  the  good  faith  and  ability  of  the  two  hundred  or 
more  scantily-paid  traveling  preachers.  Book  Concern,  indeed ! 
We  do  not  have  that  sort  of  Concern  to-day.  Trusting  to  the 
combined  wisdom  of  Book  Agents,  of  local  committees,  of  the 
Book  Counnittee  and  of  the  Missionary  Board,  all  entering  on 
the  use  and  sustentation  of  this  structure,  with  large  accumulated 
capital  and  unquestioned  credit,  we  are  under  no  apprehension 
of  financial  embarrassment.  John  Dickins  occupied  witli  his 
little  Book  Concern  four  different  homes  during  the  ten  years 
of  its  stay  in  Philadelphia.  The  Concern  has  now  occupied  ten 
places  of  bnsiness  in  New  York.  But  even  as  our  itinerancy 
is  getting  a  little  extended,  so  it  may  be  hoped  that  this  new 
structure  altogether  suitable  in  dimensions,  in  solidity,  in  no- 
bility of  character,  and  in  adaptation  to  the  work  for  wliich  it 
is  designed,  will  be  the  home  of  our  publising  and  missionary 
enterprises  for  at  least  a  hundred  j'ears  to  come. 

No,  sir,  we  have  no  concern  about  the  stability  of  this  Book 
Concern.  But  there  are  some  things  about  which  we  are  con- 
cerned. Not  about  dividends  to  Conference  claimants,  sir,  for 
we  doubt  whether  in  the  long  run  it  will  be  found  tliat  these 
are  a  reliable  substitute  for,  or  even  an  aid  to,  due  appeal  to  tlie 
consciences  and  hearts  of  our  people  in  behalf  of  superannuate 
and  needy  preachers.     We  much  prefer  that  the  results  of  our 


METHODIST  BOOK  GONCERK  15 

great  publishing  work  shall  be  turned  back  again  into  the  chan- 
nels from  which  they  came,  and  thus  produce  larger  and  better 
results.  We  are  concerned  that  the  profits  of  this  great  estab- 
lisliment  shall  provide  Methodism  with  a  literature  the  very  best 
that  Methodism  with  money  can  furnish.  We  are  concerned 
that  our  Sunday-school  literature  shall  be,  not  feebly-good,  but 
strong,  surpassing  any  thing  of  the  kind  which  the  world  now 
knows — instructive,  attractive,  inspiring,  and  ennobling  to  our 
youth.  We  are  concerned  that  our  periodical  literature  shall 
be  delivered  from  the  localisms  and  personalisms  and  general 
narrowness  which,  out  of  the  conditions  and  relations  of  our 
church  papers  have  heretofore  seemed  almost  inevitable.  These 
are  some  of  our  concerns.  May  we  not  hope  that  these  also, 
like  the  former  financial  concern,  may  soon  be  allayed  ?  And 
then  if  we  can  drop,  even  now  as  we  enter  this  new  edifice,  the 
old  and  unattractive  title,  and  substitute  for  it  the  simple  title 
Book  House,  or,  if  any  prefer,  Puhlishmg  House,  this  also 
would  not  a  little  increase  with  some  of  us  the  pleasure  witli 
which  we  hail  this  hour. 

I  have  spoken  only  of  the  Book  House  ;  let  me  now  recall  the 
fact  that  our  Missionary  Society  began  its  work  in  like  narrow 
quarters.  Dr.  Reid,  in  his  admirable  history  of  our  Society, 
gives  all  the  statements  needed  on  this  point ;  tells  of  the  little 
])and  of  heroic  and  hopeful  men  who  formed  the  Missionary 
Society  in  1819,  tells  of  the  opposition  wliich  they  encountered 
within  the  Church  and  of  the  discouragement  of  some  who 
withdrew,  one  after  another,  from  the  management ;  tells  us  also 
how  with  a  sublime  faith  such  an  one  as  Joshua  Soule  said  witli 
prophetic  insight :  "  The  time  will  come  wlien  every  man  who 
assisted  in  the  organization  of  this  Society,  and  persevered  in 
the  undertaking^  will  consider  it  one  of  the  most  honorable 
periods  of  his  life."     So  said  a  wise  man,  and  his  prophetic 


16  CENTENNIAL   OF  THE 

words  have  been  fulfilled.  We  rejoice  this  evening  as  we 
gather  here  that  from  the  first  annual  collections  of  the  Society, 
amounting  in  all  to  $823  04,  the  Church  has  so  nearly  reached 
the  $1,200,000  which  the  General  Committee  was  able  last  fall 
to  distribute.     So  thank  we  God  and  take  courage. 

The  past  has  been  spoken  of.  This  building  is  a  record,  but 
it  is  also  a  prophecy.  Its  immovable  foundations,  its  massive 
walls  have  in  them,  we  finnly  trust,  the  symbolism  of  a  Church 
destined  to  endure  through  tempest  and  change  to  bless  far  dis- 
tant generations.  Its  ample  spaces,  much  of  them  now  occu- 
pied under  lease  by  other  parties  for  other  business,  await 
resumption  for  our  own  purposes,  as  the  enlarging  Church  shall 
require.  There  is  here  no  contentment  with  past  achievements. 
Such  contentment  would  be  the  precursor  of  retreat  and  decay. 
On  the  contrary,  this  structure  foretells  not  only  a  stable  Church, 
but  a  Church  which,  rising  more  and  more  to  a  comprehension 
of  the  times  and  of  God's  great  purpose  in  them,  shall  meet 
with  an  increasing  intelligence  and  with  fuller  missionary  con- 
secration the  call  of  a  needy  world. 

There  will  gather  here  many  years  hence,  as  we  devoutly 
pray,  Christian  men  and  women,  om*  successors  in  Methodism, 
who  will  be  able  to  rejoice  over  a  Christian  literature,  furnished 
here  in  part,  so  pure,  so  virile,  so  attractive,  so  broad,  that  it 
shall  have  in  some  large  degree  abated  and  destroyed  the  doubt- 
ful and  pernicious  literature  that  in  books  and  periodicals  now 
floods  the  land ;  and  they  will  also,  we  fii'mly  trust,  in  that 
day  rejoice  over  missionary  operations  and  successes  compared 
to  which  all  that  we  now  share  in  will  seem  scanty  and  insig- 
nificant. 

This  building,  so  please  it  God,  will  be  the  scene  of  Christian 
labor  and  the  center  of  Christian  influences  that  shall  not  sim- 
ply touch  the  margin  of  distant  heathen  lands,  but  penetrate 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  17 

them  tlirougliout  with  the  transforming  and  saving  power  of 
the  Gospel. 

May  we  and  onr  successors  have  the  wisdom,  courage,  and 
faith  requisite  for  such  liigh  results. 

Address  by  Earl  Cranston,  D.D. 

Three  curiously-related  facts  may  be  predicated  of  this 
service:  It  is  without  precedent  in  Methodism,  yet  its  prelim- 
inaries w'ere  arranged  more  than  one  hundred  years  ago,  and  it 
is  distinctively  Wesleyan  in  type.  If  our  great  Jove,  from 
whose  brain  sprang  this  modern  Minerva — the  patroness  of 
learnine:  and  armor-bearer  to  the  heroes  of  our  later  Iliad — 
could  by  any  earthly  conclave  be  enticed  from  celestial  delights, 
snrely  near  this  spot  would  rise  his  new  Olympus. 

And  who  would  tremble  when  he  thundered?  First,  those 
nearest  the  summit.  Would  not  the  man  wlio  made  bishops 
for  American  Methodism  commune  with  these  successors  of 
Coke  and  Asbury?  And  should  he  find  one,  w'ho  had  ever 
knowingly  laid  hands  on  a  young  minister,  who  had  scorned  to 
sell  books  and  Advocates  would  there  not  be  a  sound  terril)le 
indeed  to  that  un-Wesleyan  Bishop,  but  very  comforting  to 
the  poor  editors  and  agents  by  him  compelled  aforetime  to 
crowd  a  half  hour's  eloquence  into  a  seven  minutes'  spe/ech  ? 
And  from  this  solemn  moment  would  not  that  Bishop — and 
all  the  Bishops — vie  with  the  publishers  in  echoing  the  original 
»Iovian  proclamation,  "Be  diligent  in  selling  the  books," 
"  Spread  the  magazine ;  it  will  do  good  ! " 

Such  rumblings  as  might  reach  our  bold  Boston  seer — who, 
rivaling  the  Tlnmderer  himself,  laughs  at  years  and  antedates 
his  eternal  youth  by  undertaking  eleven  octavo  volumes  at  three- 
score and  ten — would  doubtless  be  serenely  toned.  That  inter- 
conference  recreation  would  remind  Mr.  Wesley  of  himself  and 


18  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

elicit  liis  instant  approval,  re-enforced  by  the  admonitions,  "  Fos- 
ter the  literature,"  "  Spread  the  books ! " 

How  that  firet  American  Conference  must  have  touched 
the  old  leader's  heart  bj  its  loyalty  to  his  methods!  From 
that  early  beginning  our  Methodism  directly  and  distinctly 
declared,  defined,  and  defended  itself  through  its  own  organic 
press,  the  fathers  esteeming  its  doctrines,  experiences,  and  pohty 
too  precious  to  be  intrusted  to  any  medium  not  its  own ;  and 
this  hour  finds  no  proposition  from  any  source  to  abandon  or 
modify  the  system  which  has  been  the  guarantee  of  our  doc- 
trinal integrity  and  is  the  only  sufiicient  explanation  of  our 
matchless  connectionalism. 

They  who  have  the  chief  responsibility  for  its  welfare  are 
sometimes  alarmed  by  aggressive  individual  and  local  enter- 
prises, just  as  our  devoted  secretaries  are  concerned  when 
unafliliated  movements  threaten  their  respective  treasuries — 
and  an  officer  who  is  not  watchful  of  his  trust  is  not  to  be 
trusted  as  an  officer ;  yet,  if  John  Wesley  were  to  inspect  his 
parish  at  tliis  moment,  he  would  doubtless  find  the  Book  Con- 
cern held  in  greater  esteem  than  ever  before  by  oui-  people,  and 
discover  in  the  heart  of  our  ministry,  as  a  body,  the  conviction, 
positive  and  unalterable,  that  no  one  man,  however  true,  can 
better  adjust  the  service  of  the  press  to  the  needs  of  the  Church 
than  the  Church  herself,  tlirough  her  General  Conference.  Then 
he  would  wonder,  with  us,  how  a  Methodist  preacher,  having 
submitted  to  the  Chnrch  the  most  vital  and  sacred  questions 
growing  out  of  liis  own  call  to  the  holy  ministry,  could  ever 
assume  to  decide  for  the  Church  matters  by  her  committed  only 
to  her  highest  council. 

He  would  declare,  and  we  would  agree,  that  while  one  of  our 
number  may  advocate  new  projects  he  cannot  consistently 
project  new   Advocates.     He   would   declare,  and  we   agree, 


METHODIST  BOOK   CONCERN.  10 

that  as  no  man  amongst  us  can  upon  his  vows  justify 
another  in  using  a  Methodist  pulpit  to  discredit  a  cardinal 
l)<>int  in  Metliodist  doctrine,  so  upon  his  vows  no  man 
aiiongst  us  can  justify  another  in  using  Methodist  patronage 
to  discredit  a  cardinal  point  in  Methodist  polity ;  that  onr 
organic  press  is  a  cardinal  point  in  our  polity,  original  and 
essential ;  and  that  on  tliis  spot  and  in  this  hour,  especially, 
it  were  more  than  undutiful  to  justify  any  selfish  or  ambitious 
invasion  of  the  publishing  functions  of  the  Church. 

But  Mr.  Wesley  was  compelled  to  recognize  a  law  of  emeiv 
gencies,  and  so  must  we.  Some  ministers  have  projected  new 
Advocates,  and  other  periodicals,  in  the  spirit  of  intensest 
loyalty.  In  several  centers  of  population  and  influence  on  our 
western  frontier  there  are  journals  edited  by  presiding  elders 
or  pastors  who,  without  salary,  add  this  labor  to  their  i-egular 
duties.  This  is  no  sign  of  revolution  or  revolt  against  the 
official  press.  Commanding  influences  crystallize  so  rapidly 
under  the  conditions  prevailing  in  these  new  centers  that  prompt 
and  concerted  action  in  the  development  of  church  interests 
becomes  injperative.  Every  lifting  and  propelling  force  nmst 
be  seized  upon  and  our  people  move  promptly  to  meet  oppor- 
tunities that  come  once,  but  never  again.  In  this  state  of  things 
a  local  paper  appears  to  enterprising  workers  an  indispensable 
adjunct ;  but  through  every  venture  runs  a  hope,  as  loyal  to  the 
Church,  as  to  the  new  metropolis,  that  ultimately  the  sprightly 
print  may  become  a  great  connectional  paper.  Even  these  un~ 
dertakings,  however,  are  not  without  their  perils,  and  it  is  well 
that  they  seldom  survive  the  official  tenure  of  their  founders, 
lest  local  interests  should  presently  gain  permanent  ascendency 
over  our  connectional  movements,  and  the  latter  thus  lose  the 
compactness  and  monieutnm  which  alone  have  made  them 
resistless. 


20  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

Onr  great  founder  would  doubtless  frankly  speak  upon  anotliei" 
question  which  is  now  under  discussion  in  some  quarters.  If  the 
fathers  were  right  in  the  policy  of  placing  a  profit  upon  their 
publications  when  the  "  societies  "  as  well  as  the  preachers  were 
poor,  they  would  not  call  upon  us  to  change  that  policy  now 
that  the  Church  is  comparatively  rich  and  the  preachers  still 
poor. 

There  is  an  unsympathetic  if  not  an  unregenerate  cadence  in 
the  cry  for  a  literature  at  cost.  The  minister  who  by  j^atri- 
mony  or  matrimony  is  delivered  from  fear  of  want  should 
never  echo  it.  The  people  who  have  not  paid  cost  for  the 
Gospel  preached  to  them — much  less  a  profit  to  the  itinerant, 
on  his  investment  of  brain,  and  heart,  and  education,  and  life, 
and  home,  and  family  comforts — will  not  grudge  for  his  benefit 
in  after  years  the  profit  they  allow  to  an  ordinary  vender  of 
books  and  periodicals. 

I  admit  that  their  direct  obligation  to  care  for  their  aged  and 
i'.ifirm  ministers  is  not  to  be  thus  fully  discharged,  and  that  profit 
is  not  the  sole  object  of  the  Book  Concern,  But  the  people  have 
never  by  direct  means  respectably  maintained  their  disabled 
pastors  in  retirement;  and  the  "produce of  the  Book  Concern," 
while  not  the  single  object,  was  yet  of  sufiicient  moment  in 
the  plans  of  its  founders  to  receive  constitutional  protection. 
And  at  this  point  it  is  pertinent  to  inquire,  What  right  have  the 
executors  of  a  trust  to  consider  for  an  instant  any  proposition 
that  itnplies  even  remotely  the  practical  alienation  of  property 
interests  committed  to  their  management  ?  For  a  hundred  years 
the  preachers  and  people  of  our  connection  have  paid  out  of 
their  poverty  reasonable  profits  on  purchases  from  the  Concern, 
adding  steadily  to  the  capital  until  now  it  aggregates  more  tlian 
two  and  three-quarter  millions  of  dollars,  all  accumulated  under 
the   sacred  guarantee  above   referred  to :   tliat  their  deposits 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  21 

should  inure  to  the  l)e]ieiit  of  ueedy  ministers,  their  widows 
and  orphans.  Let  tliis  trust  be  justly  administered.  And  while 
we  all  agree  that  our  literature  may  well  be  offered  at  prices 
lower  than  the  average  charged  by  secular  lionses  for  similar 
grades,  let  no  one  demand  in  the  interest  of  this  well-to-do  gen- 
eration such  concessions  from  the  Book  Concern  as  will  leave 
its  lawful  beneficiaries  without  at  least  a  modest  interest  on 
their  capital.  We  have  paid  no  large  dividends  as  yet — not  even 
four  per  cent. — and  there  is  a  fearful  amount  of  back  in- 
terest from  the  Concern,  as  well  as  back  pay  from  the  Church, 
due  to  these  worthy  claimants.  Encouraged  by  the  abounding 
l)rosperity  vouchsafed  to  tiie  business,  from  the  year  of  her 
return  to  the  only  lawful  use  of  the  '*  produce  of  the  Concern  " 
until  this  hour,  may  the  Church  put  far  away  the  day  when  the 
civil  courts  shall  be  more  attentive  to  the  prayer  of  the  humblest 
(claimant  on  this  sacred  fund  than  she  herself. 

Still  communing  with  the  founders  of  our  institutions,  let 
us  dutifully  accept  another  word  of  warning.  It  is  more  than 
a  coincidence  that,  as  the  links  which  bind  us  to  our  heroic 
ancestry  are  broken  one  by  one,  the  social  and  religious  ties  that 
bind  us  together  are  also  yielding.  The  class-meeting  was  the 
unit  of  organization  and  the  school  of  sympathetic  fellowship. 
It  is  going  from  us  as  the  shades  of  the  fathers  dissolve  into  the 
forgotten  past ;  and  presently  the  sons  who  forget  the  fathers 
will  in  like  manner  be  forgotten.  Ominous  indeed  are  the 
facts  already  confronting  us  touching  the  pastoral  relation.  Its 
once  sacred  and  scriptural  character  is  being  sadly  marred  by 
the  exactions  of  convenience,  taste,  and  commercialism  attend- 
ing both  its  initiation  and  dissolution.  Annual  Conferences  are 
seriously  debating  the  problem  of  entertainment  at  hotels. 
Their  recurring  sessions  are  no  longer  to  mean  more  prayers  in 
-the  homes,  more  life  in  the  Church,  more  souls  at  the  altars 


22  CENTENNIAL    OF    THE 

where  thej  gather.  Alas !  for  these  indications  that  preachers 
and  people  are  willing  to  break  the  blessed  intimacy  that  Christ 
established  between  them.  If  ever  the  ministry  needed,  for 
its  own  welfare,  to  be  lovingly  interested  in  the  people,  it  is 
now.  If  ever  our  people  needed  to  cultivate  affectionate  recol- 
lections of  the  men  who  first  led  them  to  God,  or  have  at  any 
time  ministered  to  them  in  holy  things,  it  is  now.  And  here 
we  have  an  agency  admirable  and  still  nnimpaired. 

Through  the  beneficent  energies  of  the  Book  Concern, 
founded  and  maintained  by  their  consecrated  efforts,  Methodist 
preachers  prolong  theirministry,  and  send  their  benedictions  on 
to  the  children's  children  of  those  they  have  served. 

Our  thoughtful  people,  on  tlie  other  hand,  find  in  every  book 
and  church  periodical  a  fresh  medium  of  gracious  currents 
between  their  old-time  pastors  and  themselves,  as  well  as  oppor- 
tunity for  deferred  payments  of  gratitude  or  obligation  to  those 
faithful  ministers  whose  poverty  in  retirement  is  tlie  heritage 
of  that  fidelity  in  service  which  won  men  to  God. 

Would  that  no  middle-man  had  ever  come  between  the 
Concern  and  the  people.  LFnless  initiated  through  the  same 
baptism  into  a  sympathetic  mediatorship,  he  is  a  non-conductor 
of  such  sentiments  as  should  bind  this  institution  to  its  friends, 
and  we  pay  him  for  putting  asunder  what  God  and  our  fathers 
joined  together. 

The  apostolic  leadership  of  a  Wesley,  the  wholesome  guar- 
antees of  the  Sixth  Restrictive  Rule,  and  the  unswerving  loy- 
alty of  three  generations  of  preachei'S  have,  under  God,  brought 
us  to  this  scene  absolutely  unique  in  history.  With  increasing 
admiration  for  the  wisdom  that  founded  our  Book  Concern  I 
am  still  for  the  old  rule  that  protected  and  strengthened  it,  and 
for  the  rights  of  the  fathers  in  it,  and  for  such  an  enlargement 
of  faith  and  activity  through  these  vastly  improved  facilities  as 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  23 

shall  cause  a  shout  of  exultant  hope  on  both  sides  of  the  swell- 
ing flood  tliat  yet  for  a  little  while  rolls  between  our  Israel  mil- 
itant and  the  host  triumphant. 

Address  by  M.  D'C.  Crawford,  D.D. 

Mr,  Chairman,  A  few  evenings  ago  I  sat  reading  Dr. 
Hunt's  "Centennial  of  the  Book  Concern,"  and  fell  asleep  and 
liad  a  dream.  I  was  in  that  room  [pointing  to  the  office 
of  the  Missionary  Secretaries],  sitting  conversing  witli  Chap- 
lain McCabe.  There  was  a  sharp  rap  at  the  door,  and  tlie 
chaplain  said,  "  Come  in,"  and  in  walked  a  man  of  small 
stature,  with  a  broad  brimmed  hat,  a  shad-bellied  coat,  knee- 
breeches,  a  very  high  white  choker  and  a  big  cane,  with 
which  he  marked  time  as  he  walked  in.  As  soon  as  the  chap- 
lain saw  him,  he  turned  to  me,  and  in  an  undertone  said,  "  That 
is  John  Dickins."  He  arose  and  put  out  his  hand  and  took  the 
visitor's  hand  and  said,  "  How  are  you,  Brother  Dickins  ?  I 
am  very  glad  to  see  you,"  And  he  introduced  him  to  me,  and 
I  told  him  how  glad  I  was  to  see  him  ;  that  I  had  been  reading 
about  him  and  thinking  about  him.  And  he  said,  "Well,  T 
thought  I  must  coine  and  see  this  new  building ;  it  is  making  a 
great  noise  among  us  up  there,"  And  the  chaplain  said, 
"  What  do  you  think  of  it  ?  "  "  What  do  I  think  of  it  ?  I  do 
not  know  what  to  think  of  it.  Never  in  the  loftiest  flights  of 
my  imagination  did  I  dream  that  it  was  possible  that  the 
business  I  founded  one  hundred  years  ago  should  have  ex- 
panded to  any  thing  like  this."  Just  then  my  door-hell  rang, 
and  I  woke  up  to  find  the  vision  vanisJied.  I  was  very  sorry, 
for  I  wanted  to  say  to  John  Dickins  that,  although  he  lived  in  a 
day  of  small  things,  what  he  did  had  made  possible  what  those 
who  lived  after  him  had  done.  He  built  for  Ezekiel  Cooper, 
and  Ezekiel  Cooper  for  those  who  came  after  him,  and  those 


24  CENTENNIAL   OF   THE 

Again  for  their  successors,  and  so  for  one  hundred  years  this 
institution  has  been  in  course  of  construction.  And  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  say  who  of  the  builders  deserves  the  most  credit  or 
whose  work  has  been  of  most  consequence.  There  has  been 
rolled  up  a  magnificent  inheritance.  What  Henry  George 
would  call  the  "  unearned  increment "  has  come  to  the  Book 
Agents  of  this  day :  Hunt  &  Eaton  and  Cranston  &  Stowe. 
Other  men  labored  and  they  have  entered  into  their  labors.  I 
do  not  agree  with  Mr.  George,  that  we  have  no  right  to  an 
unearned  increment,  and  I  do  not  dispute  the  right  of  these 
Agents  to  enjoy  the  wonderful  opportunity  that  is  open  to 
them,  or  tlie  privilege  of  faithfully  discharging  the  wonderful 
responsibility  that  comes  upon  them.  I  honor  the  fathers,  but 
the  fathers  are  never  honored  by  doing  right  over  again  what 
they  did.  If  the  fathers  lived  to-day  they  would  not  repeat 
themselves.  They  worked  in  their  day  and  did  what  was  ap- 
propriate to  their  circumstances ;  those  who  live  now,  with  other 
surroundings,  must  do  other  work. 

And  now  it  seems  to  me  that  those  who  have  in  charge  this 
great  trust,  I  repeat  it,  have  a  wonderful  opportunity  and 
a  weighty  responsibility.  I  must  say  I  quite  agree  with  Bishop 
Andrews.  I  think  that  we  need  and  may  have  a  better  litera- 
ture. Why,  here  is  this  magnificent  structure,  out  of  debt,  with 
a  large  working  capital,  and  what  a  market :  a  Methodist 
population  of  twelve  millions  of  people  ! 

And  now,  God  forbid  that  I  should  seem  to  reflect  upon  the 
past  at  all ;  I  do  not,  sir.  I  say,  all  honor  to  those  who  lived 
and  worked  in  the  past ;  but  not  a  man  among  them  had  the 
(opportunity  of  tlie  men  that  live  and  work  now.  No  longer 
embarrassed  with  debt ;  no  longer  obliged  to  consider  the  mere 
question  of  money-making — who  can  predict  the  possibilities 
of  the  situation !     And  I  beheve  these  brethren,  sir,  are  equal 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  25 

to  the  emergency !  Mj  Brother  Cranston  will  forgive  me  if  I 
differ  from  him  as  to  the  value  of  "  Book  Concern  Dividends." 
Conceding  fully  the  claim  of  the  beneficiaries,  I  doubt  tlie 
wisdom  of  meeting  it  by  a  tariff  on  our  literature.  The  more 
fully  these  needy  veterans  are  thrown  for  support  on  the  people 
whom  they  have  served  the  more  generous  will  be  the  re- 
sponses. In  this  section  of  the  Cliurch  I  am  sure  that  during 
the  years  in  which  the  Book  Concern  has  done  least  for  the 
cause  in  question  the  largest  increase  has  been  made  in  the 
"collection  for  necessitous  cases." 

But  what  is  the  true  business  of  our  publishing  house?  Is  it 
not  to  make  our  literature  the  best  possible,  and  give  it  to  our 
whole  Methodist  population  at  the  lowest  market  rates?  I^ay, 
if  possible,  undersell  the  market !  I  would  then  take  the  profits 
of  the  Book  Concern  and  buy  more  brains  to  put  in  our  period- 
icals and  in  our  books.  I  would  make  them  better  and  at  the 
same  time  cheapen  them.  I  am  not  criticising  the  men  who 
make  our  periodicals.  They  are  doing  noble  work.  But  there 
are  not  enough  of  them.  It  takes  several  men  to  make  a  mod- 
ern metropolitan  religious  weekly,  or  a  first-class  review,  or  a 
popular  Sunday-school  journal.  We  need  more  editorial  force. 
So,  too,  I  think  there  should  be  a  larger  outlay  for  authorship, 
in  order  to  increase  the  list  of  books  which  will  commend  them- 
selves to  the  literary  public  and  make  the  imprint  of  the  house 
a  guarantee  of  excellence. 

Never  before  in  the  history  of  the  Church  has  there  been  a 
chance  for  a  satisfactory  retail  Methodist  book-store  in  this 
city.  Now  we  have  an  elegant  room,  and  I  trust  it  will  be 
fitted  up  and  so  conducted  as  to  compare  favorably  with  any 
book-store  in  the  land.  Oui*  people  desire  it  and  are  entitled 
to  it.  It  is  their  dut)'  to  come  here  and  buy  books.  So  I 
preach  and  so  I  practice.     But  why  not  make  the  attraction 


26  CENTENNIAL    OF   THE 

irresistible;  so  tlmt  enstomers  will  flock  here  l)ecause  they  are 
so  well  served  ? 

Mr.  Chairman,  this  is  something  more  than  a  commercial 
house  ;  it  is  more  than  a  mission  house.  Here  are  represented 
many  societies  of  the  Church ;  here  are  offices  of  agents  and 
editors  and  secretaries.  Here  the  preachers  meet,  enough  of 
them  to  make  an  Annual  Conference,  every  Monday  morning. 
They  are  the  picked  men  of  several  conferences.  There  are 
here  many  things  which  are  representative  of  the  Church. 
I  wish  there  were  more  of  them.  Every  Church  society  in 
this  section  of  the  country  ought  to  have  an  office  in  this  build- 
ing. It  ought  to  he  a  great  denominational  rendezvous.  I  had 
the  honor  of  being  a  member  of  the  Building  Committee. 
My  associates  know  that  I  urged,  in  season  and  out  of  season, 
the  arrangement  for  a  grand  historical  room.  I  would  take 
the  "  Library,"  as  it  is  called,  and  make  it  the  nucleus  of  a 
great  Methodist  library,  into  which  I  would  try  to  bring  every 
book  ever  published  by  a  Methodist  press,  and  I  would  invite 
our  missionaries  from  all  over  the  world  to  send  curiosities.  I 
would  invite  historical  documents  and  every  thing  of  every  kind 
relating  to  Methodism  ;  and  O,  dear  sir — that  the  other  speakers 
should  have  left  it  to  me  to  say  ! — look  around  here  ;  my  heart 
is  touched  as  I  look  at  these  faces,  and  then  when  I  think  of  the 
many  more  that  ought  to  be  here  I  I  want  room  to  put 
one  hundred  of  them — the  men  who  have  made  Methodism 
famous  and  who  have  done  honor  to  our  name!  Then  we 
might  have  a  reading-room,  where  every  Methodist  newspaper 
in  the  world  could  be  found,  so  that  visitors,  when  they  come 
to  this  city,  will  not  feel  that  they  have  seen  New  York  until 
they  have  seen  this  building.  Now,  I  appreciate  the  reasons 
why  what  I  thought  desirable  could  not  be  granted.  Sir,  I 
make  no  reflection  upon  the  Building  Committee ;  I  presume 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  27 

they  were  wise  and  right.  But  the  Book  Committee  hear  this ; 
and  there  are  men  liere  wlio  will  go  to  the  next  General  Con- 
ference :  I  hope  they  will  carry  tlie  request  there.  This  is  a 
lire-proof  building,  and  is  the  first  suitable  place  we  have  ever  had 
for  denominational  archives.  Whatever  is  done  here  will  only 
be  a  beginning.  1  look  to  the  time  when  there  will  be  a  great 
historical  building  for  Methodism  in  this  city.  ISTow,  sir, 
all  these  words,  and  all  the  words  I  have  ever  spoken  in 
public  or  in  private  of  this  Book  Concern,  are  not  only 
loyal  words,  but  they  are  tenderl}'  loyal  words.  I  have 
never  been  out  of  harmony  with  it.  Indeed,  there  now 
crowd  to  my  lips  reminiscences  that  fill  me  with  emotion. 
The  first  wages  I  ever  earned  I  earned  in  the  folding-room  of 
the  old  Book  Concern  in  Crosby  Street.  I  was  eleven  years 
old.  1  was  obliged  to  leave  school  to  go  to  work.  I  remember 
the  feelings  with  which  I  went  that  first  day  to  that  old  building, 
and  I  remember  the  first  pay-day.  That  princely  Christian  gen- 
tleman, Beverly  Waugh — whose  portrait  hangs  here — was  senior 
Book  Agent,  and  he  was  paymaster.  The  business  was  small 
in  those  days,  and  the  Agents  paid  off  the  hands.  I  stood  in  line 
Avith  other  boys,  and  when  my  name  was  called  I  went  up.  I 
signed  my  name,  and  he  put  in  my  hands  a  new  Mexican  silver 
dollar.  I  thought  it  was  the  brightest  I  ever  saw,  and  I  have 
no  recollection  of  any  amount  of  money  I  ever  received  making 
me  feel  so  rich  as  I  felt  that  day.  And  then,  what  surprised 
me,  he  seemed  to  know  me.  I  had  recently  made  a  profession 
of  religion  and  joined  the  Church  on  probation.  He  called  me 
by  name ;  lie  laid  liis  liand  on  my  head  ;  he  prayed  that  the 
blessing  of  God  miglit  come  upon  me.  I  believe  it  came  ;  it 
lias  never  been  withdrawn.  And  now,  as  I  look  back  through 
the  years,  O  what  a  blessed  memory  tliat  is !  It  seems  as  though 
all  the  mercies  of  mv  life  I  trace  back  to  it. 


28  CENTENNIAL    OF   THE 


During  all  my  public  career  of  nearly  fifty  years .  it  lias 
been  my  privilege  to  mingle  with  tlie  good  men  who  liave 
been  in  one  way  or  another  connected  with  the  Book  Concern 
and  Mission  Rooms.  And  when  I  consider  the  influence  they 
have  exerted  upon  me,  how  mucli  of  the  joy  of  my  life,  liow 
much  of  what  I  am  has  arisen  from  my  association  with 
them,  I  feel  that  I  have  reason  to  thank  and  praise  God  that  I 
ever  knew  tliis  institution  and  that  I  have  held  friendly  rela- 
tions with  it.  I  say  these  things  from  my  love  of  it,  and  my 
brethren  in  the  ministry  will  bear  me  witness  every-where  that 
this  has  been  my  tone  on  all  occasions. 

And  now  I  do  bespeak  for  this  institution,  for  its  publications, 
for  its  interests  in  every  w^ay,  their  sympathy  and  their  prayers, 
praying  with  them,  that  God  will  make  this  great  institution  a 
blessing  to  all  the  world  in  all  the  centuries  to  come  ;  that  this 
century  may  be  so  glorious  and  so  grand,  that  so  much  may  be 
done  for  God  and  for  humanity,  that  whoever  lives  to  its  close 
may  look  back  and  see  a  w'ork  as  great  as  that  which  we  see  as 
we  look  back  upon  the  past. 

Address  by  George  S.  Chadbourne,  D.D. 

Ten  minutes  is  a  small  space  of  time  in  which  to  make  an 
address  on  such  an  occasion  as  this.  I  shall,  however,  as  re- 
quested, attempt  the  diflicult  task,  and  if  I  should  transgress 
the  prescribed  limits  I  trust  the  offense  will  be  condoned  on  the 
ground  of  the  largeness  of  my  theme  and  of  the  force  of  habit. 

We  come  here  to  rejoice  together  over  the  completion  of  this 
magnificent  building,  and  to  dedicate  it  to  its  intended  uses.  I 
confess  to  a  gi|5at  interest  and  gratification  in  this  structure,  but 
they  do  not  arise  so  much  from  a  view  of  it  as  a  successful  busi- 
ness and  financial  enterprise,  thougli  I  find  much  there  that 
ministers  to  my  pleasure.     I  am  glad  that  I  belong  to  a  Church 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  29 

that  owns  and  manages,  with  such  eminent  success,  the  largest 
denominational  publishing  and  mission  house  on  the  continent, 
if  not  also  in  the  world.  In  the  past  history  and  in  the  present 
enviable  condition  of  this  enterprise  I  see  much  which  gives  to 
me,  as  a  loyal  Methodist,  sincere  and  devout  gratitude  and  joy. 
Still,  these  are  not  the  things  that  have  foremost  place  in  my 
thought  to-niglit,  or  which,  in  contemplation,  afford  me  the 
largest  satisfaction.  This  stately  pile,  with  all  the  appliances  for 
its  work  with  which  it  is  crowded,  has  a  voice  for  me,  and  my 
brief  address  will  endeavor  to  interpret  that  voice  as  it  sounds 
in  my  ears.  It  speaks  to  me  of  the  mission,  the  function  of  the 
true  Christian  Church,  which  I  conceive  to  be  twofold.  It  is, 
first,  to  evangelize  men,  to  convert  them  to  the  Christian  faith 
and  doctrine  ;  and,  secondly,  to  educate,  to  culture  them  therein. 
It  is  clear  that  the  Lord  Christ  intended  his  Church  to  be  an 
evangelizing  force  in  the  world.  His  great  commission  to  it, 
Issued  just  before  his  ascension  to  his  triumphant  glory,  clothed 
it  with  that  perpetual  authority  and  duty :  "  Go  ye  into  all  the 
world,  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature."  I^ot  to  lim- 
ited places  and  to  select  circles,  but  to  all  the  world  and  to  every 
creature.  Teach  the  Gospel  in  every  place  you  can  reach  and  to 
every  man  who  will  hear.  What  is  the  Church,  any  part  or 
branch  of  it,  without  this  evangelizing  element  ?  It  is  a  loco- 
motive without  steam  ;  it  can  make  no  progress.  It  is  a  human 
body  without  the  power  of  assimilation ;  it  can  have  no  growth. 
The  true  Church  must  be  on  the  move;  it  must  be  aggressive  ; 
it  must  go  to  men,  and  it  must  assimilate  them  ;  it  must  build 
them  into  itself.  I  am  glad  to-night  that  we  can  make  our  con- 
fident appeal  to  the  liistory  of  Methodism  in  support  of  its 
claim  that  it  has  this  evidence  of  being  a  true  Christian  Church. 
''  The  world  is  my  parish,"  said  its  founder,  and  no  true  son  of 
Wesley  has  ever  been  content  with  any  less  field  than  the  world. 


30  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

From  its  origin  Methodism  has  been  going;  it  has  been  on  tlie 
move  to  lind  and  preach  to  men.  On  this  continent  it  started 
on  horseback,  and  followed  men  every-where,  East, West,  North, 
and  South,  as  they  pushed  out  in  search  of  home  and  fortune. 

It  was  scarcely  more  than  firmly  planted  here  when,  impelled 
])y  its  native  spirit  of  evangelism,  it  organized  its  Missionary 
Society  and  began  its  larger  work  of  covering  the  globe  with 
its  operations.  And  I  think  I  am  not  assuming  too  much  when 
1  say  that  no  other  branch  of  the  (christian  Church  is  doing  so 
much  to-day  to  evangelize  the  world  ;  no  other  is  carrying  and 
preaching  the  Gospel  to  so  many  of  the  millions  of  the  earth  as 
our  own  branch  of  it.  And  I  cannot  conceal  my  pleasure  at 
the  fact  that  this  part  of  our  work — the  work  of  the  true  Chris- 
tian Church — demands,  needs,  such  facilities  for  its  prosecution 
as  are  furnished  by  this  noble  building.  We  have  a  right  to  be 
glad  and  rejoice  as  we  come  here  to  dedicate  it  to  such  an  ex- 
alted and  worthy  use.  To  my  own  thought  it  will  be  here  as  a 
great  fountain  of  living,  healing  waters,  fed  by  the  innumerable 
streams  of  the  beneficence  of  the  Church,  and  sending  forth  in 
time  innumerable  streams  to  water  and  refresh  and  save  the 
world. 

The  second  function  or  mission  of  the  Christian  Church,  as  I 
conceive  it,  is  to  educate,  to  culture  men  in  the  Christian  faith 
and  doctrine.  And  here  again  I  do  profoundly  rejoice  that  my 
own  Church  is  second  to  none.  No  branch  of  the  Church  is 
doing  so  much  to  promote  in  the  world  an  intelligent,  well- 
grounded,  and,  therefore,  rational  religious  faith.  Methodism 
has  never  held  to  the  idea  that  ignorance  is  the  parent  of  devo- 
tion. On  the  contrary,  it  has  from  its  origin  utterly  repudiated 
that  false  and  mischievous  assumption.  Its  whole  history,  from 
its  birth  in  Oxford  down  to  this  liour,  is  the  emphatic  denial  of 
that  charge  or  insinuation,  sometimes  heard,  that  Methodism 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN:  31 


was  rather  in  sympathy  witli  an  uneducated  ministry  and  an 
uncultured  membership.  It  has  been  the  glory  and  boast  of 
Methodism  that  it  has  been  in  hearty  sympathy  with  tlie  people 
— with  all  the  people.  It  lias  proclaimed  its  mission  to  be,  to 
preach  the  Gospel  to  the  poor  as  well  as  to  all  others  who  would 
hear  it.  But  it  has  never  counted  ignorance,  illiteracy,  as  a 
virtue,  but  has  done  more  than  any  other  religious  body  to  do 
away  with  them,  and  to  raise  uj)  a  membership  whose  piety 
should  rest  on  knowledge  and  intelligence.  To-day,  in  this 
place,  amid  the  surroundings  of  this  hour,  I  can  again  make  my 
confident  appeal  to  its  history,  and  rest  the  case  there.  Two 
men  were  sent  from  God,  and  the  name  of  each  was  John. 
Each  came  for  a  witness,  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth  as  to  the 
mission  of  the  Church.  The  first  was  John  Wesley,  the  well- 
equipped  collegian,  the  profound  scholar,  the  indefatigable 
student,  the  facile,  ever  busy  writer.  We  have  a  right  to  make 
our  boast  that  Methodism  was  born  in  a  university — in  proud 
and  venerable  Oxford — born  out  of  the  heaven-illuminated  soul 
and  the  heaven -baptized  heart  of  one  of  the  intellectually 
largest  men  of  his  own  or  almost  any  age.  Karely  does  En- 
gland send  blazing  across  the  firmament  of  this  world  brighter, 
clearer  intellect  than  that  of  John  Wesley.  lie  has  justly  been 
the  wonder  and  the  admiratian  of  the  foremost  men  of  his  own 
and  of  later  times.  We  turn  to  this  first  John,  our  founder ; 
and  while  we  find  him  burning  with  a  quenchless  zeal  to  evangel- 
ize men,  to  lead  them  into  Christian  life  and  experience,  scarcely 
less  was  his  zeal  to  have  them  well-informed  as  to  the  great 
essential  truths  on  which  that  life  and  experience  were  founded. 
Wesley  was  an  immense  publishing  house  in  himself,  furnishing 
out  of  the  masterful  resources  of  his  own  wonderfully-endowed 
nature,  author,  editor,  publisher,  and  distributor.  His  pen,  no 
less  than  his  life,  emitted  light  upon  the  j^athway  of  all  who  be- 


32  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

came  his  followei-s.  His  aim  was  first  to  flood  the  souls  of  men 
with  the  regenerating  Hght  of  tlie  Holy  Spirit,  and  thus  set 
them  in  the  road  heavenward  ;  and  then,  tliat  they  might  walk 
intelligently,  successfully  therein,  flood  that  road  with  the  clear 
electric  light  of  knowledge.  And  that  aim  has  been  steadily 
kept  in  view  by  Methodism  ever  since ;  never  has  it  been  lost 
sight  of.  This  it  was  that  brought  forth  our  second  John,  he 
whose  name  Avas  Dickins. 

Well  may  we  recall  and  speak  of  him  here  to-day ;  well  may 
we  seek  to  estimate  the  debt  which  Methodism  owes  to  him. 
Methodism  saw  its  need  of  books,  of  a  literature  with  which  to 
culture  its  followers,  to  instruct  and  train  them  in  Christian 
truth,  as  interpreted  by  itself.  Whence  should  they  come  l 
Methodism  was  small  and  poor ;  but  in  this  hour  of  its  need 
came  the  second  John.  How  has  that  handful  of  corn  in  the 
top  of  the  mountains — tliat  little  six  hundred  dollars  loaned  to 
Methodism  by  John  Dickins — how  has  it  come  to  shake  like 
Lebanon,  and  the  fruit  thereof  to  fill  the  earth !  Behold  these 
stately  buildings,  these  millions  of  capital,  these  crowded  rooms 
and  shelves,  these  ceaselessly  active  presses  pouring  out  their 
tons  of  Christian  literature,  and  sending  them  on  apocalyptic 
wings  over  the  world !  In  all  this  let  us  behold  what  God  hath 
wrought.  But  all  this  is  only  familiar  history,  household  words, 
to  world-wide  Methodism.  Thus,  led  by  the  hand  of  God, 
Methodism  has  risen  from  the  small  beginnings  of  John  Dickins, 
and  his  little  room  in  Philadelphia,  up  to  this  grand  structure, 
and  these  abundant  and  perfect  appointments  for  this  part  of 
its  great  work.  It  is  surely  well  for  us,  in  this  day  of  such 
large  things,  to  remember  that  of  the  small  things,  and  to 
cherish  gratefully  the  memory  of  the  men,  sent  of  God,  through 
whose  faith,  self-denial,  and  heroism  we  have  reached  this  grand 
estate. 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  33 

But  I  must  stop,  for  niy  time  lias  expired.  But  tlie  theme  is 
a  grateful  one,  and  I  have  it  in  my  brain  and  heart  to  say  more. 
Standing  here  to-night,  after  this  lapse  of  a  hundred  years  of 
Methodism  as  an  educating,  culturing  force  in  this  land,  an  ilhi- 
niinator  of  the  pathway  of  men  in  Christian  truth  and  life, 
there  comes  to  me  a  vision  of  what  may  be,  of  what  we  may 
expect  will  be,  at  the  close  of  another  liundred  years.  I  cannot 
delay  you  to  portray  that  vision,  nor  indeeJ  is  it  necessary  that 
I  should  do  so.  For,  if  what  we  now  behold  and  celebrate  be 
tlie  fruitage  which  a  century  has  brought  from  so  small  a  plant- 
ing, what  may  we  believe  our  children  shall  behold  as  they  come 
together  to  celebrate  the  second  centennial  of  Metliodism  as  an 
evangelizing  and  educating  force  in  tlie  world  !  If  the  little  one 
of  1789  has  become  a  thousand  in  1889  what  will  the  thousand 
of  1889  have  become  in  1989  ?  May  those  who  shall  be  then 
alive  to  behold  it  be  even  more  loyal  and  devoted  to  our  Meth- 
odism than  are  we,  and  may  that  Methodism  then  be  even  more 
mighty  as  an  agency  to  win  men  to  God  and  train  them  for 
his  service. 

At  the  conclusion  of  Dr.  Chadbourne's  address  the  chairman 
placed  the  magniticent  property  in  the  hands  of  Hon.  Amos 
Shinkle,  chairman  of  the  Book  Committee,  and,  in  the  absence 
of  Judge  Fancher,  of  Dr.  Sandford  Hunt,  treasurer  of  the  Mis- 
sionary Societ}',  who,  in  turn,  presented  it  to  Bishop  Andrews 
for  dedication.     In  doing  this  Mr.  Shinkle  said  : 

Bishop,  On  behalf  of  the  Book  Committee  of  tlie  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  the  happy  duty  devolves  upon  me  to 
present  to  you  our  part  of  this  building  to  be  dedicated  to  the 
service  of  Almighty  God,  through  the  publishing  interests  of 
the  Church,  and  may  God  grant  that  Scriptural  holiness  may  be 
extended  more  and  more  over  all  lands  through  the  instrumen- 
tality of  the  Book  Concern ! 


34  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

Dr.  Hunt  said : 

On  belialf  of  the  Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  it  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  present  to  you 
that  portion  of  this  building  owned  by  the  Missionary  Society, 
to  be  dedicated  to  the  service  of  God  and  the  spread  of  Christ's 
kingdom  throughout  the  earth. 

Receiving  the  building  at  their  hands  the  Bishop  led  the  con- 
gregation in  a  most  comprehensive  and  devout  prayer  of  dedi- 
cation. After  the  doxology  the  venerable  and  beloved  Dr. 
William  jS[ast  pronounced  the  benediction  and  the  audience 
slowly  dispersed,  ^\\i\\  old-time  Methodist  greetings  and  admiring 
loiterings  through  such  portions  of  the  magnificent  structure  as 
remained  open  for  inspection. 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  35 


Metropolitan  Opera-House  Meeting. 


The  Metropolitan  Opera-house  was  crowded  with  enthusi- 
astic Methodists  on  the  occasion  of  the  mass  meeting,  Tlmrsday 
night,  February  13.  Bisliop  Andrews  presided.  Dr.  A.  E. 
P.  Albert,  of  New  Orleans,  i-ead  the  Scriptures.  Cliaplain 
McCabe,  Senior  Missionary  Secretary,  led  the  singing.  Dr. 
John  M.  Reid  offered  the  following  prayer: 

Prayer  by  J.  M.  Reid,  D.D. 

O  Lord  God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac,  and  of  Israel,  God  of  our 
fathers,  our  God,  blessed  be  thy  name  forever !  Both  riches 
and  honor  come  of  thee,  and  thou  reignest  over  all,  and  in  thine 
hand  it  is  to  make  great,  and  to  give  strength.  All  things 
come  of  thee,  and  of  thine  own  have  we  given  thee.  We,  who 
in  time  past  were  not  a  people,  are  now  the  people  of  God,  a 
chosen  generation,  a  royal  priesthood,  a  peculiar  people,  that 
we  should  show  forth  the  praises  of  him  who  called  us  out  of 
darkness  into  his  marvelous  light.  Thou  hast  quickened  us 
together  with  Christ,  hath  raised  us  up  together,  and  made  us 
to  sit  together  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ  Jesus.  O  God,  we 
liave  assembled  to-night  to  be  glad  in  thy  name,  to  render  thee 
thanksgiving  and  praises  for  what  thou  didst  for  our  fathers  and 
for  what  thou  hast  done  for  us.  Thou  didst  give  them  to  see, 
as  with  the  light  of  noonday,  that  it  was  no  part  of  thy  divine 
purpose  that  any  human  being  should  perish,  but  rather  that 
all  should  turn  unto  thee  and  live.  It  was  a  distinct  and  burn- 
ing revelation  to  them  of  divine  goodness  in  all  its  Christly 
richness,  and  of  saving  grace  in  all  its  unspeakable  frecness  and 


m  CENTEimiAL    OF  THE. 

fullness.  Glorj  be  to  God  !  Thou  didst  give  them  also  tongues 
of  lire  with  which  to  proclaim,  the  world  wide  over,  "  whosoever 
will,  let  him  come  and  partake  of  the  waters  of  life  freely." 
O  how  we  thank  thee  that  thou  didst  reveal  to  them,  throuirh 
thy  word,  that  the  Spirit  of  God  itself  would  bear  witness  to 
the  believing  soul  that  it  was  born  of  God,  and  that  we  might 
know  our  sins  forgiven  and  feel  the  joys  of  sonship.  Yes,  ever 
blessed  God,  thou  didst  put  this  experience  into  their  hearts, 
in  fact  sent  forth  the  Spirit  of  thy  Son  into  their  hearts,  crying, 
Abba,  Father  I  They  sang  it,  they  shouted  it,  they  preached 
it  until  now  millions  in  all  lands  are  testifying  that  they  are 
pardoned  and  saved,  that  they  have  passed  from  death  unto  life. 
We  thank  thee,  O  Father,  that  thou  didst  lead  us  at  a  very 
early  day  to  put  this  Gospel  on  fire  upon  printed  pages,  and  to 
eend  them  out  as  leaves  of  the  tree  of  life  for  the  healing  of  the 
nations.  We  thank  thee  for  a  hundred  years  of  subsequent 
prosperity.  We  look  around  our  great  building  and  we  cry 
out  with  overflowing  gratitude,  "  What  hath  God  wrought !  " 
Help  us,  O  Lord,  to  be  glad  as  we  ought,  and  rejoice  to-night. 
O  for  a  baptism  of  the  old  fire,  that  we  may  shout  aloud  thy 
praise  !  So  unfold,  we  entreat  thee,  the  history  of  thy  dealings 
with  us  to  the  minds  of  those  who  are  to  address  us  on  this  oc- 
casion that  they  shall  vividly  conceive  and  powei'f ully  express 
the  truth.  Let  a  mighty  volnme  of  song  so  well  up  from  these 
thousands  of  hearts  that,  as  in  the  days  of  old,  all  can  see 

How  happy  are  they, 

Who  the  Saviour  obey, 

And  have  laid  up  their  treasure  above ! 

Above  all  we  beseech  thee,  O  thou  God  of  our  fathers,  abide 
with  us,  and  let  it  be  forever ;  continue  to  impart  efficiency  and 
success  to  the  Church  in  all  its  departments.  Let  this  great 
press  that  we  are  driving  by  steam  become  a  yet  mightier  voice 


METHODIST  BOOK  GONCEBN.  37 

to  preach  tliy  word.  Keep  it  on  the  side  of  truth,  of  righteous- 
ness, of  temperance,  of  freedom,  of  holiness.  Endow  it,  in  all  its 
departments,  with  the  spirit  of  holy  consecration.  From  all  false 
doctrines,  lieresies,  and  schism,  from  all  contempt  of  thy  word 
and  commandments,  from  all  indorsement  of  ungodly  words  or 
deeds,  good  Lord,  deliver  us.  Continue  to  lead  on  this  mission- 
ary liost  into  the  darkness  still  overshadowing  our  world,  till 
there  shall  be  a  band  for  Jesus  on  every  isle  that  gems  the  sea 
and  in  every  land  on  which  the  sun  shines.  Preserve  us  as  a 
people  pure  in  doctrine,  fervent  in  spirit,  burning  in  zeal,  con- 
secrated in  property,  united  in  love,  truly  humble  in  spirit,  and 
simple-minded,  wise  in  all  our  methods,  adding  daily  to  us  such 
as  are  saved.  Keep  us  from  growing  proud  as  we  become 
great,  or  from  becoming  self-important  as  we  become  intellectual. 
Send  down  upon  our  Bishops  to-night,  all  of  them,  wherever 
they  are,  a  fresh  anointing  that  will  inspire  them  anew  to  lead  the 
hosts  of  God's  elect.  Give  to  all  the  pastors  of  the  flock  the  Spirit 
of  the  great  Shepherd,  that  each  may  take  those  of  his  own 
fold  into  green  pastures  and  to  the  living  springs. 

Come  now,  O  Lord,  we  beseech  thee,  into  that  house  that  we 
have  builded  for  thee  !  Come  thou  and  the  ark  of  thy  strength. 
Take  up  thine  abode  there.  Preside  over  all  the  great  boards 
that  may  find  a  lodgment  beneath  that  roof.  Restrain  them 
from  all  wrong-doing  and  show  them  the  way  to  most  enlarged 
and  glorious  enterprises  for  thee  and  for  our  redeemed  race. 

All  that  thou  hast  given  us,  that  great  building,  those  temples 
over  the  land  filled  with  their  hundreds  of  thousands,  those 
institutions  of  learning  where  sages  sit  to  train  our  youth,  those 
millions  of  dollars  that  are  in  our  coffers,  the  honors  that  gar- 
land our  brows,  are  all  from  thee,  but  would  be  nothing  with- 
out thee.  Great  God,  give  us  thyself !  May  the  Shekinah  that 
beams  upon  our  holy  places  never  grow  dim,  but  as  the  centu- 


38  CENTENNIAL    OF   THE 

ries  roll  round  let  us  become  more  and  more  able  to  glorify  thy 
name,  more  and  more  fully  equipped  for  all  the  great  duties  of 
the  future,  and  tlieii  in  thy  presence,  wlien  earth  has  passed 
away,  take  our  full  share  in  crying,  with  the  triumphant  host 
before  the  throne, "  Blessing,  and  glory,  and  wisdom,  and  thanks- 
giving, and  honor,  and  power,  and  might,  be  unto  our  God  for 
ever  and  ever."     Amen. 

The  first  address  was  by  Bishop  Foss,  on  "  Tongue  and  Type 
Joint  Agencies  in  Evangelization."     He  spoke  as  follows : 

Address  by  Bishop  Cyrus  D.  Foss,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

The  tongue  and  the  pen  are  the  two  greatest  forces  in  the 
world.  Thought  underlies  all  action  and  propagates  itself  and 
multiplies  its  power  by  words.  Words,  spoken  or  written,  have 
sharpened  all  swords,  loaded  all  cannon,  kindled  the  fires  of  all 
revolutions,  built  and  destroyed  nations,  turned  the  world  on  its 
hinges.  "Words,  immortal  words,  forged  into  the  thunderbolt 
of  our  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  made  good  by  seven 
yeai's'  war,  broke  the  galling  chains  of  thirteen  feeble  colonies 
and  made  them  free  and  independent  States.  And  other  words 
in  that  Constitution  which  Mr.  Gladstone  declares  "the  most 
wonderful  words  ever  struck  off  at  a  given  time  by  the  brain 
and  purpose  of  man,"  welded  those  discordant  colonies  into  a 
nation  and  sounded  far  out  among  the  nations,  and  far  down 
the  ages,  the  glad  evangel  of  ""'  government  of  the  people,  by 
the  people,  for  the  people." 

By  these  stepping-stones  let  us  ascend  the  highest  interests 
of  mankind.  Christianity  began  its  career  as  a  tongue  of  fire, 
but  at  once  linked  itself  with  the  pen.  On  the  day  of  Pente- 
cost assembled  thousands  were  startled  by  the  mighty  outburst 
«)f  its  power,  and  its  character  as  a  burning  proclamation  was 
suggested  by  tongues  of  flame  on  the  bro.vs  of  its  chosen  mes- 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  39 

sengers;  but  then  their  chief  spokesman  immediately  linked 
this  scene  with  the  writings  of  the  prophet  Joel.  The  Saviour 
himself  used  both  tongue  and  pen.  He  did  not,  indeed,  with 
liis  own  hand  write  a  single  word  which  has  come  down  to  us, 
but  lie  set  his  seal  on  the  ancient  writijigs  by  saying :  "  Search 
the  Scriptures  ;  "  and,  "  If  they  hear  not  Moses  and  the  prophets 
neither  will  they  be  persuaded  though  one  rose  from  the  dead," 
lie  also  guided  hands  which  held  pens  inspired  by  himself. 
St.  Luke,  in  his  second  treatise,  describes  his  gospel  as  a  record 
of  what  Jesus  "  began  to  do  and  teach."  It  was  only  the  begin- 
ning. Several  books  of  the  New  Testament  might  be  more  fitly 
named.  It  would  teach  a  deeper  truth  if  tlie  fifth  of  these  books 
were  styled  the  "Acts  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  by  tlie  Apostles ; " 
and  the  sixth,  "  The  Epistle  of  tlie  Lord  Jesus  Christ  to  the 
Komans  by  the  Pen  of  Paul ;  "  and  the  last,"  The  Revelation  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  to  the  World  Through  the  Soul  of  John." 

In  every  great  forward  movement  Christianity  has  wielded 
both  tongue  and  })en.  Luther  used  both.  Before  the  Diet  of 
Worms  he  said :  "  Here  I  stand  ;  I  can  do  no  other  ;  God  help 
me,  Amen."  But  l)efore  that  time  he  had  put  himself  on  rec- 
ord by  the  ninety-four  theses  which  he  wrote  and  nailed  to 
the  door  of  the  church  at  Wittenberg.  Afterward,  when  out- 
lawed and  not  permitted  to  speak,  and  imprisoned  in  the  castle 
of  tlie  Wartburg,  he  rendered  one  of  his  greatest  services  to  the 
Reformation,  with  the  pen,  by  translating  the  Bible  into  the 
common  language  of  the  German  people.  He  also  put  his  pro- 
foundest  beliefs  into  permanent  fonri  in  commentaries ;  one  of 
these  found  out  John  Wesley  in  the  very  crisis  of  his  religious 
life,  and  brought  him  to  the  joyful  knowledge  of  salvation — thus 
making  Martin  Luther  the  lineal  grandfather  of  Methodism. 

Wesley  spoke  and  wrote  incessantly.  What  he  did  in  either 
of  these  lines  would  have  been  enough  for  three  men  of  average 


40  CENTENNIAL    OF   THE 

industry.  All  the  world  knows  him  as  the  most  tireless  of 
itinerant  evangelists  and  is  coming  to  know  him  as  one  of  tlie 
most  prolific  of  authors. 

In  this  respect  Methodism  has  always  heen  animated  by  the 
spirit  of  its  founder.  It  has  gone  every- where,  blowing  trumpets 
and  setting  types.  Primarily  it  has  always  been,  in  every  land 
to  which  it  has  gone,  a  glorious  proclamation  of  gospel  grace. 
It  has  felt  the  great  commission  as  a  hurricane  at  its  back  and 
a  fire  in  its  heart.  "  Go  ye !  "  has  been  its  watchword.  But 
wherever  it  has  gone,  and  got  a  foothold,  and  stopped  long 
enough  to  get  its  breath  and  look  around,  it  has  at  once  sent  for 
a  printing-press.  So  it  is  most  fit  that  these  missionary  secre- 
taries and  Book  Agents  should  sit  together  on  the  same  platform 
and  be  housed  within  the  same  magnificent  walls ;  nay,  that  the 
senior  publisher  and  the  missionary  treasurer  should  actually  be 
condensed  into  one  person. 

In  the  monumental  edifice  which,  in  the  first  decade  of  the 
second  century  since  its  formal  organization,  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  has  erected,  posterity  will  see,  enshrined  in 
massive  and  graceful  architecture,  very  much  of  the  spirit  and 
purpose  of  the  Methodism  of  to-day.  If  there  are  "  sermons  in 
stones  and  books  in  running  brooks  "  surely  some  voices  must 
be  pouring  forth  from  that  magnificent  pile.  Shades  of  Asbury 
and  Dickins  and  Soule  and  Bangs  and  Waugh  and  Durbin  and 
your  co-laborers,  ye  who  with  eloquent  voice  and  printed  page 
laid  so  broadly  and  grandly  the  massive  foundations  on  which  it 
is  our  exalted  privilege  to  build,  speak  to  us  from  the  celestial 
battlements  over  which  ye  look  down  upon  us  at  this  hour ! 
Methinks  they  answer  in  adoring  wonder,  "What  hath  God 
wrought ! "  Let  us  take  up  the  strain,  "  What  hath  God 
wrought "  through  these  two  institutions  which  they  founded 
and  conserved  and  loved ! 


METnODIST  BOOK  CONCERX.  41 

Through  our  heloved  Missionary  Society  "  what  hath  God 
wrought !  "  At  its  first  anniversary,  just  seventy  years  ago,  its 
aggregate  collections  for  the  first  year  were  found  to  be  $823  64  ; 
and  a  speaker  who  ventured  in  his  impassioned  oratory  to  pre- 
dict that  the  time  would  come  when  the  churches  within  tlie 
limits  of  the  Baltimore  Conference  alone  would  raise  a  like 
amount  in  a  single  year  was  thought  to  be  a  Utopian  dreamer. 
Last  year  the  income  of  the  Society  was  $1,130,000.  In  our 
country  this  Society  (together  with  its  twin  sister,  the  Board  of 
Church  Extension,)  has  done  more  than  any  other  agency  to  lav 
the  moral  and  religious  foundations  of  twenty  of  our  newer 
States  and  Territories  and  to  speed  the  flight  of  the  twin  angels 
of  moral  and  legal  temperance,  with  radiant  faces  and  drawn 
swords,  over  the  vast  prairies  of  Iowa,  Kansas,  and  the  two 
Dakotas.  Into  many  foreign  lands  it  has  also  gone,  and  gone 
to  stay  until  the  rosy  light  of  the  millennium  shall  flood  the 
whole  earth.  It  has  gone  to  them  to  plant  churches  and  schools 
and  orphanages  and  hospitals  and  presses,  to  use  its  siege-guns 
and  flj^ing  artillery  and  infantry  and  cavalry,  and  every  possible 
new  arm  of  effective  service,  until  the  militant  Church  shall  be- 
come the  Church  triumphant.  In  India  and  Cliina  already  three 
hundred  dusky  Orientals,  led  by  us  into  the  ministry  of  the  word, 
are  sounding  the  call  of  gospel  grace  through  the  ranks  of  the 
heathenism  they  have  lately  abandoned ;  and  twelve  thousand 
more,  whose  hearts  God  has  "  strangely  warmed,"  kneel  with 
our  missionaries  around  the  holy  sacrament  of  the  Saviour's 
death.  Our  latest  reports  from  India  bring  tidings  of  pente- 
costal  blessing.  At  a  camp-meeting  on  the  Rohilkund  District 
last  December  two  hundred  and  thirty  persons  M'ere  forward 
for  prayer  in  a  single  day,  and  nearly  all  were  joyfully  con- 
verted. Our  veteran  missionary,  the  Ttov.  Dr.  E.  W.  Parker, 
presiding  elder  of  the  district,  says  :  "  Our  baptisms  last  year 


42  CENTENNIAL   OF  THE 

were  1,45Y,  this  year  2,966,  and  if  the  brethren  during  1890 
oul}'^  baptize  the  present  inquirers  tliey  will  report  quite  4,000." 

Toward  these  grand  results  on  both  sides  the  great  Pacific — 
here  and  yonder — our  printing-presses  have  wrought  mightily. 
"Who  can  tell  how  much  they  have  had  to  do  at  once  with  the 
essential  spirit  of  Methodism  and  with  its  actual  progress, 
with  the  training  of  its  workers  and  the  spread  of  its  work  ? 
"What  scales  can  weigh  the  sacred  aroma  of  the  hymns  of 
Charles  Wesley  ?  And  what  mathematics  can  estimate  the  sum 
total  of  the  healing  influence  which  they  have  poured  forth 
into  the  miasma  of  the  world's  sin  ?  "Well  was  it  for  the  world 
that  Methodism  was  born  and  reared  in  a  renowned  university, 
and  that,  in  the  very  first  generation  of  its  history,  it  produced 
such  authors  as  "Wesley  and  Clarke  and  "Watson  and  Fletcher 
— men  whose  amplitude  of  learning,  theological  insight  and 
soundness  and  polemic  power  have  commanded  respect  wher- 
ever the  English  language  is  read.  So  high  a  Calvinistic  theo- 
logical authority  as  Dr.  James  "W.  Alexander  paid  the  follow- 
ing tribute  to  "Watson :  "  Turretine  is  in  theology  instar 
omnium.  Making  all  due  allowance  for  the  difference  of  age, 
"Watson,  the  Methodist,  is  the  only  systematizer,  within  my 
knowledge,  who  approaches  the  same  eminence;  of  whom  I 
use  Addison's  words  :  '  He  reasons  like  Paley  and  descants 
like  Hall.' "  John  Fletcher  was  the  very  model  of  a  master 
in  religious  controversy.  His  satire  was  as  keen  as  his  logic, 
as  merciless  as  his  character  was  saintly.  His  "Checks"  can 
never  become  obsolete  so  long  as  the  errors  he  combated  need 
to  be  checked.  Evangelical  Arminianism,  which  in  our  time  has 
so  nearly  snowed  under  the  old  type  of  Calvinism,  owes  to  these 
authors  and  their  successors,  and  to  the  preaching  inspired 
by  their  writings,  a  debt  not  yet  fully  acknowledged. 

Two  incidents  may  suffice  to  illustrate  this  quiet  working  of 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  43 

Methodism  beyond  its  own  ecclesiastical  pale  in  contributing 
toward  a  movement  scarcely  less  than  a  revolution.  When  my 
father  was  a  young  circuit  preacher  on  tlie  east  end  of  Long 
Island  he  was  moved  by  the  criticisms  rife  in  those  times  to 
announce  one  Sunday  that  the  next  time  he  came  around  the 
circuit  he  would  read  from  the  Westminster  Confession  and 
show  how  its  doctrines  differed  from  those  of  Methodism.  This 
announcement  filled  the  little  church,  and  brought  out  espe- 
cially the  Presbyterian  elders,  one  of  whom  on  his  way  home 
complained  that  a  Methodist  preacher  should  read  any  thing 
publicly  from  the  Westminster  Confession,  and  added,  "  And 
then  he  read  the  very  worst  things  in  it." 

Sixty  years  have  passed,  and  now  our  Presbyterian  friends 
ai'e  struggling  in  an  agony  over  that  Confession  to  cast  out 
those  "very  worst  things."  We  most  candidly  wish  them  suc- 
cess in  so  laudable  an  effort ;  but  some  of  them  are  not  ready 
for  it  yet.  President  Patton,  of  Princeton,  says :  "  It  must 
amuse  the  theologians  of  the  Methodist  Church  to  notice  that 
Presbyterian  office-holders  are  trying  to  persuade  the  Churcli 
which  honors  Charles  Hodge  and  Henry  I>.  Smith  as  its  great 
dogmatic  theologians  to  go  over  bodily  to  the  platform  of  the 
liemonstrants."  But  the  editor  of  our  chief  weekly  tells  us 
that  Henry  B.  Smith,  many  years  ago,  published  an  article  de- 
signed to  sliow  that  "  there  is  no  insuperable  difficulty  in  the 
way  of  a  union  of  Presbyterians  and  Methodists."  Well,  they 
seem  now  actually  to  be  coming  "  to  the  platform  of  tlie 
llemonstrants."     Let  them  come  singing : 

"  For  the  love  of  God  is  broader 

Than  the  measure  of  man's  mind, 
And  the  heart  of  the  Eternal 
Is  most  wonderfully  kind." 

AVe  who  have  tried  no  other  platform  will  welcome  them. 


44  CENTENNIAL    OF   THE 

and  "  He  wlio  tasted  deatli  for  every  man"  will  bless  the  banns. 
Go  on,  tongue  and  pen,  Missionary  Society  and  Book  Concern, 
in  the  great  work  to  which  your  Lord  lias  called  you  in  many 
lands!  Be  quick  to  answer  his  summons:  "Go  teach  all  na- 
tions." Hold  your  place  in  the  front  ranks  of  his  ever-advanc- 
ing host.  Cherish  the  spirit  of  the  world-ranging  missionary 
of  early  Methodism — Bishop  Coke.  It  is  said  of  him  that  in 
his  middle  life,  when  once  very  sick,  he  had  this  striking  ex- 
perience :  he  felt  himself  borne  by  an  angel  out  of  this  life 
and  upward,  through  surging  waves  of  glory,  toward  the  eternal 
city.  He  asked  to  be  borne  at  once  into  the  presence  of  John 
Wesley,  but  was  told  his  M'ork  was  not  finished,  and  he  could 
not  enter  heaven  then.  Filled  with  unutterable  regret  he  said  : 
"  Must  I  return  ?  "  "  So  God  wills,"  said  the  angel ;  and  Coke 
answered,  "  If  I  must  go  back,  let  me  go  and  hlaze  until  I  dieP 
He  at  once  returned  to  consciousness,  rapidly  recovered,  and 
blazed  until  he  died.  Until  his  deatli  he  represented  in  his  own 
person  the  whole  of  the  missionary  operations  of  Methodism  ; 
he  lavished  on  them  a  large  fortune,  gave  more  money  for  re- 
ligious work  than  any  other  Methodist,  if  not  any  other  Protest- 
ant of  liis  own  time,  and  at  last,  on  his  way  to  plant  missions 
in  the  Orient,  gave  his  body  to  be  buried  in  the  Indian  Ocean. 

God  grant  that  the  multiplying  myriads  of  the  tongue  and 
types  of  Methodism  may  be  vitalized  with  the  same  evangeliz- 
ing spirit ;  that  the}'  may  "  blaze,"  not,  indeed,  until  they  die, 
but  until,  in  the  holy  influence  they  shall  have  exerted,  they 
shall  live  forever  amid  the  splendors  of  the  eternal  world  ! 

At  the  conclusion  of  Bishop  Foss's  address  Bishop  Andrews 
arose  and  said  : 

Yery  many  of  our  saints  of  Methodism,  who  have  departed 
for  a  little  while,  always  have  turned  with  a  loving  heart  toward 
the  Church  again  when  they  have  reached  the  heights  of  pros- 


METHODIST  BOOK   CONCERK  45 

perity  in  their  usefulness.  One  such  is  here  witli  us  to-night, 
and  I  am  very  happj  to  be  able  to  introduce  to  you  this  even- 
ing a  man  very  well  known  in  New  York,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas 
Armitage,  of  the  Baptist  Church. 

In  his  reply  Dr.  Armitage  spoke  as  follows  : 

Remarks  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Armitage. 

I  liope  to  be  pardoned  for  tliis  intrusion.  I  hold  in  my  hand 
two  or  three  manuscripts  of  Methodism.  They  have  been  locked 
up  in  my  desk  possibly  for  a  score  of  years,  and  I  have  felt  that 
the  occasion  to-night  would  be  a  fitting  one  to  hand  them  to  the 
l)eople  who  should  own  them.  First,  there  are  two  manuscripts 
of  as  distinguished  men  as  the  Methodist  Church  ever  produced 
either  in  this  or  any  other  country.  The  first  is  a  sketch,  I  take 
it,  of  a  lecture  by  Dr.  Wilbur  Fisk  on  '^  The  Death  of  Christ." 
It  comes  to  me  directly  from  his  study  through  the  hand  of  his 
wife  and  a  mutual  friend.  It  is  merely  a  collection  of  watch- 
words evidently  intended  to  guide  him  in  his  address,  but  you 
get  a  very  comprehensive  idea  of  the  whole  sweep  of  his  mind 
(»n  that  thought — the  death  of  Christ.  It  is  in  his  own  hand- 
writing. The  other  is  a  series  of  notes  upon  certain  portions  of 
the  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Romans,  covering  eight  finely -written 
pages,  in  the  handwriting  of  John  Summerfield.  His  biographer 
says  that  he  was  an  enthusiast  in  his  study  of  the  Pauline  litera- 
ture a.s  it  is  contained  in  that  book ;  and  here  we  have  some  of 
the  results  of  close  application.  These  pages  were  presented  to 
me  by  his  sister,  Mrs.  Blackstock,  many  years  ago.  She  said 
she  would  present  them  to  no  other  person  on  earth  but  myself. 
They  were  the  last  manuscripts  of  the  sort  that  were  left  in  her 
1  lands.  She  had  the  kindness  to  say  that  in  many  things  I  re- 
minded her  80  much  of  her  brother  that  she  believed  they  would 
l>e  well  taken  care  of  if  she  left  them  with  me.     I  said  to  her. 


46  CENTENNIAL    OF    THE 

"  Have  you  any  thing  else  that  is  particularly  from  your  brother^'* 
She  said,  "  Yes,  I  have  the  most  precious  thing  that  he  left  on 
earth ;  namely,  an  ivory  pocket  memorandum-tablet  which  lie 
carried  in  his  pocket  for  years.  I  found  it  in  his  pocket  after 
his  death,  and  it  is  covered  with  memoranda  from  his  own  hand  ; 
I  will  give  you  it  if  you  will  faithfully  promise  me  that  it  shall 
be  kept  as  a  sacred  trust."  I  promised  always  to  care  for  it,  and 
I  have  kept  my  promise,  and  now  after  nearly  a  quarter  of  a 
century  I  think  these  two  productions  of  these  princes  of  Meth- 
odism should  belong  to  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  I 
would  like  to  present  them  to  Bishop  Andrews  to-night,  desiring 
that  he  will  put  them  in  a  glass  case,  or  in  some  other  convenient 
and  safe  repository,  to  be  kept  in  your  beautiful  new  building 
with  all  the  other  relics  of  the  dead  and  the  productions  of  the 
livino;  that  there  find  a  home. 

Bishop  Andrews  accepted  these  valuable  gifts  with  thanks 
assuring  the  generous  douor  that  they  should  be  preserved  with 
greatest  care. 

Many  letters  of  regret  were  received.  Dr.  Howard  Crosby's 
letter  was  read  by  General  Fisk. 

Dr.  Sandford  Hunt  was  the  next  speaker.  His  subject  was 
"  The  Book  Concern,"  of  which  he  said  : 

Address  by  Dr.  Hunt. 

We  are  assembled  to-night,  according  to  the  programme  in 
your  hands,  to  celebrate  the  completion  of  one  hundred  years  in 
the  history  of  the  Methodist  Book  Concern  and  the  seventieth 
year  in  the  history  of  the  Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church.  One  hundred  years  in  the  march  of  centu- 
ries in  the  history  of  the  world  Ls  but  a  small  fraction  in  the  ever- 
moving  procession ;  but  in  the  history  of  individuals  or  institutions 
it  may  bound  the  time  of  their  origin,  record,  close,  and  burial. 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN. 


Every  organization,  like  every  cliild,  must  pass  tlirongh  a 
period  of  growtli  to  reach  the  maturity  and  strength  of  man- 
hood. One  hundred  years  ago,  at  the  time  of  the  estabhsliment 
of  tlie  Book  Concern,  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  was  but 
live  years  of  age,  and  numbered  only  fifty-eight  thousand  mem- 
bers. The  United  States  had  but  two  years  before  adopted  a 
federal  Constitution,  and  only  three  and  a  half  short  months 
before  the  opening  of  the  first  book  store  in  Philadelphia,  Wash- 
ington, the  first  President  elected  under  the  Constitution,  had 
been  inaugurated  in  this  city  of  JSTew  York. 

There  was  not  at  that  time,  nor  for  twenty-five  years  there- 
af tei',  a  religious  newspaper  in  the  United  States.  Of  the  forty- 
three  papers,  political  and  local,  published  in  1789,  the  combined 
circulation  did  not  equal  in  amount  of  matter  the  New  York 
Christian  Advocate  of  to-day.  The  itinerant  ministers,  upon 
whom  depended  the  success  of  the  new  enterprise,  traveled  on 
horseback,  fording  i-ivers  long  yet  to  remain  innocent  of  bridges, 
and  penetrating  forests  which  wild  beasts  had  held  with  undis- 
puted claim. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  such  surroundings  that  the  fathers  of 
the  Church  laid  the  foundations  of  our  Book  Concern,  which 
has  attained  a  magnitude  so  honorable  to  the  Church  to-day. 
They  had  no  experience  to  guide  them  and  no  models  to  copy 
or  warn  them.  They  were  stimulated,  however,  by  the  record 
of  the  founder  of  the  Clmrch,  who  yet  lived  to  give  his  bene- 
dictions to  our  men  and  their  work.  Mr.  Wesley  had  traversed 
Great  Britain  and  other  parts  of  the  world  for  fifty  years,  trav- 
eling 250,000  miles — ten  times  the  distance  around  our  world — 
cliiefly  on  horseback,  lie  had  preached  on  the  way  42,000  ser- 
mons, and  yet  he  found  time  to  write  and  publish  thirty  solid 
volumes  and  translate  and  publish  one  hundred  and  twenty 
more. 


48  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

He  required  the  preachers  whom  he  sent  out  to  severe  fields 
of  labor  to  be  students.  If  they  were  unwilling  or  unable  to 
form  studious  habits  Mr.  Wesley  dismissed  them  from  his  ranks. 
The  first  preachers  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Chui-ch  felt  the 
need  of  books  quite  as  strongly  as  Mr.  Wesley.  Some  were 
imported  from  England.  The  regular  trade  would  not  run  the 
risk  of  remunerative  sales.  Hence,  five  years  after  the  organi- 
zation of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  John  Dickins,  pastor 
of  a  church  in  ISTew  York  city,  was  sent  to  Philadelphia  to 
found  a  bookstore  and  publishing  house.  With  his  borrowed 
capital  of  $600  he  flung  his  banner  to  the  breeze  and  began  his 
work.  In  addition  to  his  agency  as  Book  Steward  he  was  pastor 
of  a  church.  Debts  and  embarrassments  were  inevitable.  To 
crown  the  burdens,  Mr.  Dickins  died  of  the  yellow  fever  in 
1798,  leaving  a  debt  of  $4,500,  which  at  that  time  was  a  foraii- 
dable  one.  When  Ezekiel  Cooper,  his  successor,  grappled  with 
the  difliculties  of  the  situation,  he  was  requested  by  the  Phila- 
delphia Conference,  in  1802,  to  pack  up  the  whole  Concern  stock 
— books,  accounts,  and  all — in  his  trunk,  and  leave  for  Balti- 
more. This  he  declined  to  do ;  but  two  years  afterward  he  re- 
moved the  business  to  iTew  York. 

If  Philadelphia  dismissed  the  Book  Concern  without  tears  of 
regret  we  do  not  learn  that  any  jubilee  of  welcome  greeted  its 
advent  in  New  York.  Within  twenty  yeai'S  the  business  was 
removed  from  one  street  to  another  seven  times.  In  1833  lots 
■were  purchased  on  Mulberry  Street,  where  our  manufacturing 
has  been  carried  on  until  last  month.  In  1836  the  whole  struct- 
ure w^as  devoured  by  fire.  By  this  time  the  whole  Church  had 
felt  the  imj^ortance  of  her  publishing  house,  and  contributions 
were  furnished  amounting  to  $89,994  98,  New  York  city  now 
taking  the  lead.  In  that  unpretentious  building  products  have 
been  sent  out   which,  in  connection  with  the  Western  house. 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN:  49 


amount  to  $50,000,000,  and,  what  is  more  remarkable,  one  half 
of  this  amount  has  been  printed  and  sold  within  the  last  sixteen 
years. 

In  1820  a  branch  house  was  established  in  Cincinnati.  In 
twenty  years  it  became  a  separate  corporation,  and  its  history 
is  quite  as  successful  as  our  own.  In  the  summaries  which  I 
present,  both  of  capital  and  products,  I  include  the  business  of 
that  house,  as  the  general  term,  "  The  Methodist  Book  Concern," 
includes  both. 

That  little  capital  of  $600 — ^borrowed  one  hundred  years  ago 
— has  now  become  $2,500,000  ;  and  while  this  has  been  accunm- 
lating  the  Book  Concern  has  paid  out,  for  various  purposes  out- 
side of  its  own  business,  more  than  the  $2,500,000  now  retained 
as  working  capital.  Of  this  sum  over  $700,000  has  been  given 
for  the  support  of  superannuated  preacherci,  widows,  and  or- 
phans ;  and  last  year,  and  this,  we  are  giving  $100,000,  and  the 
shadow  of  this  sum  will  never  be  less  ! 

We  would  naturally  expect  a  rapid  increase  in  business  be- 
cause of  the  marvelous  increase  of  our  membei-ship.  In  1Y90  the 
numl)er  of  inhabitants  in  the  United  States  was  about  4,000,000  ; 
the  number  of  members  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
was  58,000.  The  increase  in  the  nation  has  been  fifteen-fold  ; 
the  increase  in  the  membership  of  the  different  branches  of 
Methodism  has  been  at  least  sixty-fold,  or  four  times  tliat  of  tlie 
population. 

As  rapidly  as  the  Church  has  increased,  both  actually  and  rela- 
tively, in  membership,  it  has  increased  in  its  patronage  of  the 
B(M)k  Concern  more  lapidly  than  in  nnml)ers.  In  1848  our 
membership  was  ()44,220.  The  sales  of  the  Book  Concern  dur- 
ing the  quadrennium  closing  with  1848  were  $612,625  19,  or 
a  little  less  than  one  dollar  a  member.  During  the  last  quad- 
rennium, closing  with  1888,  our  membership  was  2,093,395. 
4 


50  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

The  sales  of  the  Book  Concern,  East  and  West,  during  tlie 
period  were  $6,920, Y43  17 — over  three  dollars  a  member. 

Fifty  years  ago  we  had  one  copy  of  our  church  papers  for 
adults  for  fifteen  of  our  members.  If  we  include  semi-official 
papers,  most  of  which  are  published  under  the  sanction  of 
Annual  Conferences,  we  now  have  one  for  eight. 

In  our  Sunday-school  department  the  increase  has  been  even 
more  remarkable.  In  1850  we  had  514,429  connected  with  our 
Sunday-schools.  The  entire  number  of  papers  published  for 
these  schools  was  YY,363,  or  about  one  for  every  seven  scholars. 
In  1889  we  had  in  round  numbers  2,000,000  in  our  schools ; 
but  we  published  in  all  over  3,000,000  of  papers,  or  one  and  a 
half  for  each  scholar  and  teacher.  The  increase  in  our  Sunday- 
schools  was  four-fold  ;  tlie  increase  in  our  papers  was  forty-fold. 
Our  famous  statistician,  Dr.  Dorchester,  in  his  History  of 
Christianity  in  the  United  States,  estimates  the  entire  value  of 
religious  hterature  published  in  the  United  States  by  the  differ- 
ent religious  denominations  up  to  this  time  at  $144,000,000. 
Of  this  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  has  issued  $50,000,000, 
over  one  third  of  the  wdiole,  and  over  one  half  of  this  amount 
during  the  past  sixteen  years. 

And  now  what  is  the  result  ?  The  largest  Protestant  Church 
in  the  United  States  consolidated  into  unity !  The  two  great 
factors  which  have  brought  about  this  unity  are  the  unity  of 
our  episcopacy  and  the  centralization  of  our  publishing  interests 
under  the  direct  sanction  and  control  of  the  Church.  We  have 
had  no  conventions  to  bring  about  a  revision  of  our  creeds ;  and 
yet  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  favors  no  looseness  or  un- 
certainty on  questions  of  Christian  doctrine  or  morals.  Every 
person  is  publicly  asked,  before  admission  to  the  fellowship 
of  the  Church,  the  same  disciplinary  questions,  chief  among 
wliich   is  this:  "Do   you   beUeve   the  doctrines  of  the  Holy 


METHODIST  BOOK   CONCERN.  51 

Scriptures  as  set  forth  in  the  Articles  of  Reh'gion  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  ?"  Every  minister  pledges  his  sol- 
emn faith  to  preach  and  maintain  them.  The  same  books  are 
placed  in  the  Course  of  Study  for  every  one  of  the  nine  hundred 
ministers  who  are  admitted  to  the  ranks  of  the  itinerancy  each 
year.  The  Bishops  of  the  Church  are  a  unit  in  administration, 
and  the  little  mighty  Book  of  Discipline  is  their  omnipotent 
guide.  One  of  our  Bishops  presides  in  a  Conference  in  Montana 
to-day,  and  next  week  in  Georgia,  and  the  next  in  New  En- 
gland. The  next  Bishop  who  presides  in  the  New  York  Confer- 
ence lives  in  Texas.  The  one  who  presides  in  the  New  York 
East  resides  in  San  Francisco.  Our  own  resident  Bishop  of  New 
York  returned  only  last  week  from  an  episcopal  visit  to  Japan 
and  China,  and  from  the  time  he  left  New  York  until  his  return 
he  was  not  necessarily  out  of  the  bounds  of  an  Annual  Confer- 
ence or  mission  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  except  wlien 
he  was  on  the  ocean. 

It  is  under  such  superintendency  that  the  Church  has  been 
consolidated  and  solidified  into  unity  during  the  one  hundred 
years.  The  ministry  is  one  body,  whatever  subdivisions  may 
be  convenient  for  Annual  Conferences.  The  centralization  of 
our  publishing  business  is  the  logical  outcome  of  a  connectional 
Church.  The  Book  Concern  is  not  only  a  mighty  bond  of 
union,  but  the  unity  of  our  ministry  renders  its  maintenance  an 
absolute  necessity.  At  our  General  Conferences,  where  the 
whole  Church  is  assembled  through  its  representatives,  men  are 
chosen  as  editors  of  books  and  papers  who  are  believed  to  be 
worthy  of  trust  as  expounders  of  our  doctrines  and  polity.  The 
Book  Concern  sends  out  to  the  world  products  only  which  these 
trusted  officers  provide.  The  three  million  Sunday-school 
helps  sent  out  from  New  York  and  Cincinnati,  for  use  in  our 
Sunday-schools  every  Sunday,  have  all  passed  the  scrutiny  of  the 


52  CENTENNIAL   OF  THE 

editor  chosen  by  the  General  Conference.  They  bear  his  in- 
dorsement that  they  are  healthful  and  saving.  The  children  in 
the  Sunday-school  are  taught  the  same  doctrines  that  are 
enforced  in  the  pulpits.  Our  young  ministers  purchase  tlie  lit- 
erature we  pubhsh,  and  they  are  in  fact  our  only  authorized 
agents  for  its  dissemination. 

The  Methodist  Book  Concern  is  the  great  center  to  which 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  looks  for  its  supply  of  Chris- 
tian literature,  as  the  pulpit  is  the  center  of  each  congregation 
for  religious  instruction.  Is  it  a  matter  of  surprise,  then,  that 
there  has  never  been  a  secession  from  the  Church  on  doctrinal 
grounds?  In  fifty  years  not  fifty  ministers  have  left  our 
pulpits  on  account  of  disagreement  with  the  doctrinal  standards 
of  our  Church,  and  from  present  indications  the  whole  Prot- 
estant Church  wall  soon  officially  indorse  them. 

It  is  conceded  to-day  that  we  have  an  educated  ministry ;  and 
yet,  as  much  as  we  value  a  classical  course,  not  exceeding 
twenty  per  cent,  of  those  who  enter  our  ministry  are  graduates 
of  college.  Every  one  of  these  men,  however,  must  graduate 
in  the  Conference  course  of  study.  Every  young  man,  as  he 
presents  himself  at  the  door  of  the  Conference,  is  handed  a 
schedule  of  eleven  solid  volumes  for  his  first  year  and  notified 
that  he  must  master  these  books  before  he  can  take  one  step  in 
advance.  You  may  examine  the  catalogues  of  our  colleges,  and 
you  will  find  that  the  studies  required  in  the  whole  course  nec- 
essary for  graduation  in  any  one  of  them  are  not  as  extensive 
or  severe  as  those  in  the  four  years'  course  required  of  every 
Methodist  preacher.  Whether  tliese  courses  liave  for  their 
chief  end  the  attainment  of  knowledge  or  mental  discipline, 
ours  will  not  suffer  by  the  comparison.  The  Methodist  Book 
Concern  is  the  magazine  from  which  they  draw  their  supplies. 
It  is  the  educator  of  our  ministry  as  well  as  its  agent.     Thus  it 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  53 

has  been  for  a  hundred  years,  and  thus  it  must  be  for  a  hundred 
years  to  come. 

As  the  financial  outcome  of  the  century  the  Agents  and  the 
Book  Committee,  under  whose  supervision  they  act,  had  the 
high  honor  on  Tuesday  evening  last  of  presenting  to  the  Church 
the  grand  fire-proof  structure  on  Fifth  Avenue,  with  its  presses 
driven  with  steam  and  its  apartments  ilhiminated  with  light- 
ning, and  all  free  from  debt ! 

With  such  a  consummation  for  this  century  wliat  prophet 
will  arise  to  tell  us  what  shall  crown  the  work  of  the  new 
century  upon  which  we  have  entered?  Standing  upon  our 
mount  of  vision  and  gazing  over  the  past  we  say,  All  honor 
to  the  noble  men  who  laid  the  foundation,  deep  and  strong,  upon 
which  we  have  been  able  to  build  such  a  structure  !  Their  record 
is  the  broad  Church  which  now  covers  every  nation  on  earth. 

The  long,  weary  road  of  the  itinerant,  whose  saddle-bags 
were  our  bookstores,  whose  sermons  aroused  into  holy  enthu- 
siasm the  expanding  nation,  has  been  changed  for  golden 
streets  and  heaven's  royal  welcome.  But,  turning  away  from 
the  ashes  of  the  heroes  of  the  past,  we  hear  the  trumpet-blast  of 
the  incoming  century  demanding  a  new  generation  of  heroes  as 
valiant  as  those  that  honored  the  one  now  closed.  We  shall 
best  prove  our  appreciation  of  the  work  of  the  fathers  of  the 
Ciiurch  by  pushing  forward  to  greater  success  the  work  they 
liave  committed  to  our  hands. 

In  an  age  of  skepticism  we  must  have  a  ministry  and  people 
standing  in  the  first  ranks  of  learning  and  intelligence.  With 
the  Bible  in  one  hand  and  the  products  of  a  sanctified  press  in 
the  other,  with  the  old-time  fire  of  enthusiasm  in  the  heart,  the 
world  will  be  brought  to  the  feet  of  its  Creator  and  King. 

"  The  recollection  of  the  honored  dead  should  inspire  us  to 
complete  what  they  so  nobly  began.     That  will  be  a  degene- 


54  CENTENNIAL   OF  THE 

rate  age  when  we  must  go  to  the  cemetery  to  find  our  greatest 
men.  The  lives  of  the  fathers  are  not  presented  to  us  to  dwarf 
our  stature  by  contrast,  but  to  show  to  what  giants  we  should 
grow  with  better  opportunities. 

"  The  dead  but  opened  the  door  througli  which  tlie  living  may 
pass  to  victory.  If  we  ourselves  would  prove  worthy  of  our 
ancestry  we  shall  haste  forward  with  their  memories  to  speed 
us  on,  so  that  when  we  have  borne  our  age  yet  nearer  paradise 
our  children  may  strew  violets  on  our  sepulchers  and  evoke 
from  us,  as  all  from  our  fathers,  the  inspiration  of  the  immortal 
dead."  The  opening  century  beckons  us  onward  and  upward 
until  our  work  is  crowned  immortal  and  victorious. 

One  hundred  years  from  this  new  generations  will  gather 
together  as  we  do  to-night,  to  celebrate  the  achievements 
of  the  second  eentui-y  in  the  history  of  the  Book  Concern. 
The  records,  instead  of  coming  from  New  York  and  Cincin- 
nati alone,  ^\\\\  come  from  China,  Japan,  India,  Europe,  and 
Africa,  in  each  of  which  will  have  arisen  establishments,  far 
surpassing  our  own,  which  shall  send  forth  their  streams  of 
lisrht  and  knowleds-e  for  the  elevation  and  salvation  of  our 
race. 

When  that  grand  celebration  shall  come,  though  we  may  not 
mingle  with  the  throng,  I  am  sure  our  King  of  heaven  will 
allow  us  to  gather  on  some  mountain  height  and  look  down 
with  rapture  upon  the  scene,  and  heaven  will  be  the  sweeter 
when  sower  and  reaper  shall  rejoice  together. 

Dr.  Leonard  followed,  his  topic  being  "  The  Missionary 
Society." 

Address  of  Rev.  A.  B.  Leonard,  D.D. 

Mr.  Chairman  axd  Christian  Friends,  The  Missionary  So- 
ciety, which  was  organized  April  5,  1819,  and  which  celebrates 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  55 

to-night  its  seventieth  anniversary,  measures  as  does  no  other 
organization  the  growth,  benevolence,  courage,  and  conquering 
power  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  The  founders  of 
this  Society,  among  whom  were  ministers  and  laymen,  deserve 
the  honorable  place  they  now  occupy  on  the  roll  of  Methodist 
history.  The  first  officers  of  the  Society  were  Bishop  William 
McKendree,  President;  Bishop  Enoch  George,  First  Vice- 
President  ;  Bishop  Robert  R.  Roberts,  Second  Vice-President ; 
Rev.  Nathan  Bangs,  Third  Vice-President ;  Mr.  Francis  Hall, 
Clerk  ;  Mr.  Daniel  Ayres,  Recording  Secretary  ;  Rev.  Thomas 
Mason,  Corresponding  Secretary,  and  Rev.  Joshua  Soule, 
Treasurer.    ^ 

The  Corresponding  Secretaries  who  have  served  this  Society, 
exclusive  of  those  now  in  office,  are  Thomas  Mason,  Nathan 
Bangs,  William  Capers,  E.  R.  Ames,  Charles  Pitman,  Jolm  P. 
Durbin,  R.  L.  Dashiell,  T.  M.  Eddy,  J.  M.  Reid,  and  Charles 
H.  Fowler.  In  1860  William  L.  Harris  was  elected  Assistant 
Corresponding  Secretary,  and  in  1864  J.  M.  Trimble  was 
elected  to  the  same  office.  All  these  have  gone  to  their  reward 
except  J.  M.  Reid,  the  historian  of  Methodist  missions,  Charles 
H.  Fowler,  an  honored  Bishop  of  the  Church,  and  J.  M.  Trim- 
ble, a  member  of  every  General  Conference  since  1844. 

Tliis  Society,  like  many  other  things  connected  with  Meth- 
odism, was  a  development  or  an  evolution  necessitated  by  the 
inherent  forces  of  the  organization  from  which  it  sprang. 
From  the  first  Methodism  was  an  evangelistic  force,  or,  if  you 
please,  a  Missionary  movement.  This  was  the  secret  of  its 
marvelous  growth  in  the  early  years  of  her  history.  As  the  de- 
nomination enlarged  it  was  found  tliat  the  entire  body  could 
not  be  wielded  in  a  satisfactory  manner  for  aggressive  move- 
ments in  destitute  regions  at  home  and  in  foreign  fields,  and  a 
m    re  compact  organization,  that  would  co:;centrate  and  render 


56  CENTENNIAL   OF  THE 

available  the  resources  of  the  entire  system,  was  the  need  of  the 
hour.  The  circumstances  which  seemed  to  have  given  direc- 
tion to  the  forces  that  produced  the  Missionary  Society  were 
pecnhar,  and  illustrate  the  saying  of  tlie  sometimes  melancholy 

Cowper : 

"  God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way 

His  wonders  to  perfoi'm." 

The  conversion  of  John  Stewart,  a  poor,  intemperate  colored 
man  at  Marietta,  Ohio,  in  1816,  was  followed  by  a  journey 
through  a  trackless  forest,  in  obedience  to  what  he  believed  to 
be  the  call  of  God,  to  Upper  Sandusky,  and  the  opening  of  a 
mission  among  the  Wyandot  Indians.  The  revival  that  pre- 
vailed among  these  Indians  sent  a  thrill  of  missionary  fervor 
through  the  whole  Church,  and  led  to  the  organization  of  tlie 
Missiorjary  Society  three  years  later.  This  Society  from  that 
time  to  the  present  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  rapid  move- 
ments of  the  Methodist  itinerancy,  growth  of  the  Church,  and 
the  founding  of  kindred  benevolent  institutions. 

Eight  years  after  the  organization  of  the  Missionary  Society, 
and  inspired  by  it,  came  the  Sunday  School  Union  and  Tract 
Societies.  These  societies  represented  a  new  form  of  mis- 
tionaiy  activity  which  has  grown  to  wonderful  proportions. 
The  Sunday-School  Union  and  Tract  Societies  have  been,  and 
now  are,  mighty  missionary  forces  in  the  South,  on  the  Western 
frontier,  and  in  foreign  lands. 

The  Church  now  moved  on  until  in  1864,  when  another  be- 
nevolent form  of  work  was  organized,  known  as  the  Church 
Extension  Society.  This  Society  came  at  the  opportune  period 
in  our  national  histoiy.  The  war  was  drawing  to  a  close,  and 
soon  the  whole  South,  which  had  been  closed  against  us  since 
1844,  was  to  be  thrown  open.  Out  of  the  Old  South  the  New 
South  was  to  be  evolved.     The  millions  ot"  colored  people  made 


METHODIST  BOOK   CONGERK  57 

free  by  the  exigencies  of  the  war  were  to  be  lifted  up  to  a  use- 
ful citizenship,  and  the  sentiments  of  tlie  white  population 
toward  both  freedmen  and  the  conquering  ^N'orth  were  to  un- 
dergo an  important  transformation.  In  the  accomplishment  of 
this  task  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  was  to  take  an  im- 
portant part.  Then,  with  the  close  of  tlie  war,  there  was  to  be 
an  unparalleled  migration  westward  from  the  Eastern  States. 
Railroad  trains  were  to  take  the  place  of  liorse,  ox,  and  mule 
trains,  and  the  peoj^le  were  to  go  in  hundreds  where  they  had 
gone  in  tens  before.  During  the  closing  period  of  tlie  war 
money  accumulated  in  the  treasury  of  the  Missionary  Society 
amounting  to  almost  a  half-million  dollars.  The  treasury  was 
burdened  with  the  surplus.^  you  see,  and  the  authorities  were 
troubled  as  to  the  disposition  to  be  made  of  it.  When  the  war 
was  over  the  authorities  of  the  Missionary  Society  compre- 
hended the  reason  for  the  surplus  of  funds  in  its  hands. 
It  now  had  the  means  with  which  to  send  itinerants  into  the 
South  and  to  the  frontier  more  numerously  than  ever  before, 
and  the  golden  opportunity  was  not  allowed  to  go  unimproved. 
The  funds  of  the  Missionary  treasury  were  just  what  was  needed 
to  oil  the  wheels  of  the  itinerancy.  These  two  agencies  have 
given  Methodism  its  supremacy  in  the  South  and  West. 

As  to  our  occupancy  of  the  South,  that  is  a  settled  question. 
We  are  there,  and  the  recent  outrages  committed  against  some 
of  our  missionaries  will  not  cause  us  to  call  a  retreat.  The 
Joiner  outrage,  so  recently  committed,  only  increases  our  de- 
termination to  remain  in  the  South  and  continue  to  preach  a 
gospel  of  equalitj'  for  all  men.  The  cruelties  inflicted  upon 
the  colored  people  of  the  South  must  cease  ;  they  are  citizens; 
they  are  there  to  stay ;  no  scheme  of  Southern  white  men  for 
their  deportation  to  a  foreign  land  will  succeed.  Their  deporta- 
tion is  a  physical  impossibility.     If  the  whole  fleet  of  ships  now 


58  CENTENNIAL   OF  TEE 

sailing  under  the  United  States  flag  were  to  be  employed  solely 
for  their  deportation  they  could  not  carry  away  even  the  annual 
increase.  Besides,  they  are  needed  in  the  South.  Bnt  for  their 
presence  vast  regions  would  be  without  inhabitants  and  without 
laborers,  and  the  result  would  be  the  retnrn  of  the  wolf,  the 
l)ear,  and  the  buffalo.  The  deportation  of  the  whites  of  the 
South  would  be  less  damaging  in  many  localities  than  that  of 
tlie  blacks,  as  there  would  be  removed  a  more  blood-thirsty  and 
less  industrious  element.  The  South  must  become  as  safe  a 
place  of  residence  for  both  colored  and  white  as  is  the  North, 
and  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  must  do  its  part  in  bring- 
ing about  this  desirable  end. 

To-day  Methodism  leads  all  other  denominations  in  the  great 
Central  West  and  in  the  regions  beyond.  In  journeying  west- 
ward when  you  pass  the  line  that  ,  divides  Pennsylvania 
and  Ohio  you  are  on  Methodist  territory.  In  Ohio,  Indiana, 
Illinois,  Iowa,  and  Kansas,  Methodism  is  the  foremost  of  all 
denominations ;  indeed,  it  is  claimed  that  there  are  more  Meth- 
odists in  the  two  States  last  named  than  of  all  other  denomina- 
tions combined.  I  suppose  this  is  one  reason  why  they  have 
prohibition  in  those  States.  Methodists  in  those  States  live  up 
to  the  standard  erected  by  our  Church  in  regard  to  the  traffic  in 
strong  drink  better  than  we  do  in  the  Eastern  States. 

Well,  through  the  agency  of  the  Missionary  Society  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Churches  were  organized  rapidly  in  the  West 
immediately  succeeding  the  close  of  the  war.  But  tliey  were 
societies  without  houses  of  worsliip,  and  the  people  were  not 
able  to  build.  Here  was  a  demand  for  a  new  form  of  mission- 
ary work,  and  the  Church  extension  Society  was  called  into  ex- 
istence. Since  1864  tliis  Society  has  aided  in  erecting  more  than 
7,000  houses  of  worship,  while  the  whole  Church  has  erected 
about  14,000,  and  still  moves  on,  building  "  two  a  day." 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  59 

Two  years  later  another  missionary  agency  came  into  exist- 
ence— the  Freedinen's  Aid  Society.  Through  the  work  accom- 
plished in  the  South,  lai'gely  by  the  Missionary  Society,  a  mul- 
titude of  people  of  all  colors  were  gathered  into  the  Metliodist 
Episcopal  Churcli.  The  South  previous  to  the  war  made  no 
provision  for  education  at  the  public  expense  for  either  white 
or  colored.  Here  was  a  iield  for  educational  effort.  The  col- 
ored people  were  the  most  needy,  and  so  received  the  first  assist- 
ance. Later  our  work  has  been  enlarged,  and  now  includes 
both  white  and  colored.  What  was  at  first  "  the  Freedinen's 
Aid  Society"  is  now  "  tlie  Freedmen's  Aid  and  Southern  Edu- 
cation Society."  Tiiis  Society  has  erected  about  forty  institu- 
tions of  learning,  and  during  the  last  year  gave  instruction  to 
about  8,000  students. 

In  18Y2,  seeing  the  need  of  educational  facilities  for  young 
people  who  might  desire  to  enter  the  ministry,  and  particularly 
the  mission  field,  and  who  were  not  able  to  secure  a  thorough 
education  at  their  own  expense,  there  was  organized  the  Board 
of  Education — an  institution  that  has  been  instrumental  in  send- 
ing not  a  few  heroic  spirits  to  recruit  the  ranks  of  our  mission- 
ary army. 

In  1833  the  Missionary  Society  commenced  work  in  the  for- 
eign field  by  founding  a  Mission  in  Liberia  on  the  West  coast 
of  Africa.  The  foreign  work  has  expanded  until  at  this  time 
we  have  twelve  Annual  Conferences  and  nine  organized  Missions. 
In  these  foreign  missions  there  are  148  missionaries,  besides  other 
workers  numbering  3,012,  making  a  working  force  of  3,160, 
with  a  lay  membership,  including  probationers,  of  about  65,000. 

To  render  our  work  in  foreign  lands  more  effective  in  reach- 
ing the  female  populations,  the  Woman's  Foreign  Missionary 
Society  was  organized  in  1869.  This  Society  has  sent  out  150 
missionaries,  100  of  whom  are  now  in  the  foreign  field. 


60  CENTEimiAL   OF   THE 


In  1881  tlie  women  of  Methodism,  seeing  the  need  of  work 
among  neglected  home  populations  in  our  great  cities,  in  the 
South,  on  the  frontier,  and  among  the  Indians,  where  the  Mis- 
sionary Society  had  opened  the  way,  and  where  re-enforcements 
were  greatly  needed,  organized  the  Woman's  Home  Missionary 
Society.  Thus  one  after  another  these  different  forms  of  mis- 
sionary work  have  come  into  existence,  as  the  Missionary  Soci- 
ety has  prepared  the  way. 

This  Society  measures  the  benevolent  spirit  of  the  Church. 
The  ordinary  forms  of  church  work  do  not  deserve  to  be  ckssi- 
fied  as  benevolent.  It  is  not  properly  a  benevolence  to  aid  in 
erecting  a  church  in  which  the  donor  expects  to  worship,  or 
contribute  to  tlie  current  expenses  of  a  church  with  which  he 
is  identified.  We  cannot,  therefore,  measure  the  benevolent 
spint  of  a  Church  by  the  number  of  elegant  houses  of  worship 
it  erects  or  the  liberality  with  which  current  expenses  are  sup- 
ported. Nor  can  we  measure  the  benevolence  of  a  Church  by 
the  large  gifts  of  a  few  wealthy  men  made  for  special  purposes. 
Thank  God  for  a  Daniel  Drew,  who  founds  a  theological  sem- 
inary, and  for  a  Jacob  Sleeper,  who  founds  a  university,  and  for 
a  George  I.  Seney,  who  founds  a  hospital !  But  these  gifts  do 
not  measure  the  benevolence  of  the  Church  as  a  whole.  The 
Missionary  Society  and  the  other  societies,  for  which  it  has  pre- 
pared the  way,  are  the  thermometer  which  marks  the  rising 
benevolence  of  the  entire  body,  for  the  reason  that  their  sup- 
port comes  from  the  multitude  rather  than  from  the  few. 

This  Society  gives  expression  to  the  courageous  spirit  of  Meth- 
odism. This  spirit  is  not  manifested  by  laymen  who  occupy 
cushioned  pews  in  elegant  houses  of  worship  or  by  ministers 
who  preach  to  highly-cultivated  and  wealthy  congregations. 
The  courage  of  the  Church  is  seen  in  those  laymen  and  minis- 
ters who  go  into  the  haunts  of  wickedness  in  our  great  cities, 


METnOBIST  BOOK   CONCERN.  Ql 


and  to  the  frontier  to  live  in  dng-onts,  planting  Christian 
Churches  and  ministering  to  the  neglected  and  vicious  ;  who  go 
to  foreign  countries  and  hold  the  red-hot  battle-line  that  divides 
Christianity  and  heathenism.  Bishop  Taylor  journeying  on 
foot  through  the  jungles  of  Africa,  sleeping  on  the  ground  with 
the  open  sky  for  shelter,  fighting  malaria,  and  preaching  the 
Gospel  to  the  naked  heathen,  is  the  type  of  heroism  which  the 
Chnrch  needs  to  bring  this  sin-stricken  world  to  Christ.  If  all 
cannot  heroically  go  to  these  hard  and  dangerous  fields,  all  can 
heroically  work  and  give  and  sacrifice  to  support  such  as  do  go. 
This  Society  measures  also  the  conquering  power  of  the 
Churcli.  The  Church  is  an  army  of  invasion  and  conquest.  It 
is  under  orders  from  its  great  Captain  to  conquer  the  world 
and  bring  it  into  subjection  to  his  sway.  The  Missionary  Soci- 
ety brings  ever}'  soldier  into  line  and  gives  him  a  chance  to 
tight  for  his  crown.  There  is  no  form  of  snperstition  or  hea- 
thenism, however  deeply  seated  or  hoary  with  age,  that  this  So- 
ciety needs  to  fear,  backed,  as  it  is,  by  a  courageous  Church. 
Thank  God,  we  have  no  occasion  to  spend  our  time  in  devising 
a  second  probation,  revising  our  creed,  or  establishing  our  claim 
to  apostolic  succession  !  We  believe  in  one  fair  probation 
for  all,  that  Jesus  Clirist  died  for  all,  and  that  all  are  in  the 
only  succession  worth  talking  abont  who  figiit  and  win.  Our 
sojig  is : 

"  Sure  I  must  figbt,  if  I  would  reign, 
Increase  my  courage,  Lord ; 

I'll  bear  the  toil,  endure  the  pain, 
Supported  by  thy  word. 

"  Thy  saints  in  all  this  glorious  war 

Shall  conquer,  though  they  die  ; 
They  see  the  triumph  from  afar, 

13y  faith  they  bring  it  nigh." 


62  CENTENNIAL    OF   THE 


General  Clinton  B.  Fisk  spoke  on  "  The  Founders  of  the 
Methodist  Book  Concern  "  as  follows  : 

General  Fisk's  Address, 

Bishop  Andrews,  Dear  Fathers,  and  Brethren,  "What 
mean  ye  by  this  service  V  Moses,  the  great  deliverer,  prophet, 
and  leader,  in  his  last  discourse  unto  all  the  congregation  of 
Israel  prior  to  their  hasty  departure  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt, 
and  on  the  eve  of  that  dreadful  night  when  the  shadow  of  death 
fell  across  the  threshold  of  every  Egyptian  abode  and  the  de- 
stroying angel  passed  over  the  homes  of  the  children  of  Israel, 
bade  them  observe  this  thing  for  an  ordinance  to  them  and  their 
sons  forever ;  that  when  their  children  should  in  the  after  gen- 
erations say  unto  them  "  What  mean  ye  by  this  service  ?"  then 
the  story  of  the  sacrifice  and  the  redemption  should  be  told 
them.  Running  along  tiie  centuries  we  hear  the  Psalmist's  out- 
burst of  song,  "  The  sayings  which  we  have  heard  and  known, 
and  our  fathers  have  told  us,  we  will  not  hide  them  from  their 
children,  showing  to  the  generation  to  come  the  praises  of  the 
Lord,  and  his  strength  and  his  wonderful  works  that  he  hath 
done." 

If  our  children  make  the  inquiry  of  us  to-night,  "  What 
mean  ye  by  this  service  f  our  answer  will  be :  "  That  the  say- 
ings which  we  have  heard  and  known  respecting  the  genesis  of 
the  Methodist  Book  Concern  we  will  not  hide  them  from  our 
children,  but  will  show  to  the  generations  to  come  the  wonder- 
ful work  of  the  Lord  through  the  publishing  and  missionary 
enterprises  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church." 

Our  theme  for  brief  utterance  is  "  The  Founders  of  the 
Methodist  Book  Concern."  The  founders — who  were  they  ? 
First  of  all  was  its  foundress :  that  remarkable  woman,  the 
matron  of  Epworth  Rectory,  the  mother  of  John  and  Charles 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  63 


Wesley,  who  in  the  early  years  of  the  eigliteenth  century,  while 
rocking  the  cradle  in  which  slept  the'annnal  contribution  to  the 
family  circle,  reached  her  hand  across  the  gulf  of  half  a  century 
and  rocked  the  t^radle  of  Methodism.  In  all  galleries  of  noble 
and  illustrious  men  and  women  Susannah  Wesley  deserves  a 
foremost  place.  She  was  exemplary  in  the  discharge  of  every 
social  and  parental  duty.  The  conipleteness  of  her  character  shone 
forth  in  all  the  sweet  sanctities  of  her  home.  The  night  would 
be  far  spent  before  we  could  speak  of  a  tithe  of  the  excellencies 
of  that  queenly,  sagacious,  common-sense  mother,  and  pattern  of 
all  womanly  virtues.  The  mother  of  the  Wesleys  impressed  her 
sons  John  and  Charles  with  the  value  of  good  books,  good  study, 
and  good  use  of  printer's  ink.  Her  daily,  and  specially  Thurs- 
da}',  hours  with  her  darling  "  Jacky,"  as  she  was  wont  to  call 
John  Wesley,  were  the  beginnings  of  Wesley's  Book  Concern. 

At  thirty  years  of  age  Mr.  Wesley  had  written  his  first  vol- 
ume, and  he  kept  on  writing  until  Jiundredsof  volumes  in  prose 
written  by  himself,  and  the  Christian  lyrics,  which  fairly 
streamed  from  the  inspired  pen  of  Charles  Wesley,  crowded 
the  shelves  of  English  libraries,  Wesley's  first  publication  wag 
that  of  a  book  of  devotions,  issued  at  a  very  low  price,  for  the 
poor.  His  edition  of  the  Imitation  of  Christ  followed,  and 
from  that  time  forward  his  husy  pen  at  home  and  on  his  long 
and  swift  journeys  as  an  itinerant  on  his  national  circuit  and 
every-where,  and  his  husy  types  at  the  Old  Foundry,  scattered 
cheap  tracts  and  books  by  the  ten  thousand,  as  itistrumentalities 
for  spreading  religious  knowledge  through  Great  Britain  and 
among  the  Methodist  societies  springing  up  on  this  continent. 

At  the  first  Conference  held  in  this  country,  that  of  1773,  in 
the  city  of  Philadelphia,  the  publication  and  sale  of  Mr.  Wes- 
ley's books  by  proper  authority  received  careful  consideration 
and  Conference  direction. 


64  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 


The  pioneer  of  the  Methodist  Book  Concern  on  American 
soil  was  Robert  Williams ;  a  fiery,  earnest  expounder  of  the 
faitli  of  the  Wesleys.  In  1Y69,  learning  of  the  progress  of 
Methodism  in  the  New  World,  Robert  Williams  sought  per- 
mission of  Jolin  Wesley  to  leave  England  and  preach  the  Gos- 
pel in  America.  He  received  authority  to  emigrate  to  this 
country  and  preach  if  he  would  subordinate  himself  to  the  mis- 
sionaries Board  man  and  Pillmoor.  The  young  ciicuit-rider 
sold  his  horse  to  pay  his  English  debts  and  hastened  to  the 
nearest  seaport,  carrying  his  saddle-bags  on  his  arm,  and  set  off 
for  the  ship  with  a  loaf  of  bread  and  a  bottle  of  milk,  but  not 
a  penny  of  money  for  his  passage.  Asliton,  an  ardent  young 
Irish  friend,  paid  his  fare  to  New  York,  where  he  landed  in 
advance  of  the  missionaries,  and  immediately  began  to  preach 
in  John  Street,  Robert  Williams  was  a  slight,  agile,  restless 
little  man.  His  friends  wondered  that  so  large  a  soul  could 
find  room  in  so  small  a  body.  His  rich  voice  rolled  like  music 
upon  his  charmed  listeners,  as  if  he  were  a  harper  playing  upon 
all  harps  at  his  pleasure.  He  first  printed  books  for  American 
Methodists.  He  established  the  first  Methodist  circuit  in  Vir- 
ginia. He  was  the  first  Metl)odist  minister  that  married,  the 
first  that  located,  the  first  that  died  in  this  country.  His  beau- 
tiful, active  life  and  work  for  six  years  in  spreading  scriptural 
holiness  in  this  new  land  was  an  epic.  He  it  M^as  in  the  hand 
of  God  who  brought  from  darkness  to  light  Jesse  Lee.  What 
lionor  to  the  spiritual  father  of  that  heroic  itinerant,  the  founder 
of  Methodism  in  New  England  !  Francis  Asbury  laid  Robert 
Williams  to  rest,  and  by  liis  now  unknown  grave  in  Virginia 
said  that  probably  no  man  in  America  had  been  equally  suc- 
cessful in  awakening  souls. 

At  repeated  Conferences  after  the  death  of  Robert  Williams 
the  necessity  for  a  Book  Concern  established  by  the  Church  was 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  65 

discussed.  At  the  Christinas  Conference  in  1784,  among  tho 
rules  of  ministerial  life  we  lind,  sandwiched  between  that  pro- 
testing against  late  suppers  and  wine-drinking  and  an  exhorta- 
tion to  go  on  to  perfection,  this  injunction  :  ''Be  active  in  dis- 
persing Mr.  Wesley's  books.  Every  assistant  niaj  beg  money 
of  the  rich  to  buy  books  for  the  poor."  Xot  nntil  1789,  at  a 
Conference  held  in  New  York,  was  definite  action  taken,  and  a 
Book  Agent — or  Book  Steward,  as  he  was  then  termed — 
appointed. 

One  hundred  years  ago  last  May  there  convened  twenty  men 
in  a  Metliodist  Conference  in  the  old  preaching-house  in  Jolni 
Street,  New  York.  Let  us  look  in  upon  them  as  they  enter 
upon  their  great  work  by  singing  : 

"  And  are  we  yet  alive 
And  see  each  other's  face  ? 

"  What  troubles  have  we  seen, 

What  conflicts  liave  we  passed, 
Figlitings  without  and  fears  within, 

Since  we  assembled  last ! 
But  out  of  all  the  Lord 

Ilath  brought  us  by  his  love, 
And  still  he  does  his  help  afford, 

And  hides  our  life  above." 

Cliicfest  among  that  score  of  God's  chosen  ministers  of  I'ec- 
onciliation  and  peace  sat  Francis  Asbury,  pioneer  Bishop  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  tlien  forty- four  years  of  age,  in 
the  beginning  of  his  prime,  in  tlio  broad  daylight  of  one  of  the 
most  useful  lives  ever  known  among  men.  He  liad  been  laying 
broad  and  deep  the  foundations  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  in  the  valleys  and  on  the  mountains  of  the  Atlantic 
coast.  He  Lad  been  flying,  like  the  apocalyptic  angel  having 
tlie  everlasting  Gospel  to  preacli,  over  all  the  settled  regions 


06  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

from  New  York  to  ISTortli  Carolina.  With  wliat  emphasis  he 
declared  to  that  handful  of  believers  in  John  Street :  "  The 
Lord  is  my  witness,  that  if  my  whole  body,  yea,  every  hair  of 
my  head,  conld  labor  and  suffer,  they  should  freely  be  given 
up  for  God  and  souls."  He  who,  when  the  wicked  mob  pur- 
sued him,  had  mounted  his  trusty  horse,  and,  as  he  rode  on 
through  forest  and  swamp  and  peril,  made  the  woods  ring 
with  the  song : 

"  The  rougher  the  way,  the  sliorter  our  stay  ; 

The  tempests  that  rise 

Shall  gloriously  hurry  our  souls  to  the  skies." 

A  mighty  man  was  Francis  Asbury !  By  his  side  sat  one  of 
his  juniors  in  years,  the  strong-souled,  scholarly,  consecrated 
missionary.  Bishop  Thomas  Coke.  lie  who,  as  the  foreign 
minister  of  Methodism,  had  been  commissioned  by  John 
"Wesley — who  was  led  to  do  so  by  a  wisdom  not  his  own — to 
visit  America  and  to  assist  in  the  organization  of  our  Method- 
ism as  a  Church  distinct  and  separate  from  the  Church  of  our 
fathers  over  the  sea.  Sitting  in  that  goodly  company  was 
Richard  Whatcoat,  the  humble,  holy,  and  self-devoted  mail, 
a  member  of  the  Coke  embassy  from  England  to  the  infant 
Church  in  America,  and  who  had  once  been  a  fellow  class  leader 
with  Asbury  at  Wednesbury.  And  there,  too,  was  Jesse  Lee, 
thirty-one  years  of  age ;  that  man  of  deep  spirituality,  yet  of 
"infinite  jest  and  most  excellent  fancy,"  whose  rare  ricli  humor, 
blended  with  his  fearless,  honest  dignity,  and  all-abounding 
grace,  made  him  an  easy  victor  in  every  field  of  conflict,  whether 
it  was  with  the  warm-hearted  Virginians  or  the  cool,  intel- 
lectual iSTew  Englanders.  God  give  to  our  modern  Methodism 
a  legion  of  Jesse  Lees,  men  of  firm  but  gentle  natures,  which, 
like  sunbeams,  shine  without  an  effort  and  leave  ns  genial,  like 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  6T 

tlieinselves !  By  the  side  of  Jesse  Lee  in  the  Conference  of 
1789  sat  John,  his  brother ;  dignified,  zealous  and  untiring  in  his 
calling  as  a  Methodist  preacher.  Not  far  away  from  the  plat- 
form sat  one  in  the  thirty-seventh  year  of  his  life,  in  the  very 
syllables  of  whose  name  there  was  music  ;  a  man  strong  and 
tender,  distressingly  self-diffident,  yet  full  of  fiery  heroism, 
whose  labors,  abundant  for  more  than  half  a  century,  are  a 
complete  record  of  our  contemporaneous  church  history.  Free- 
born Garrettson's  name  was  and  is  a  household  word  through- 
out this  land.  Kear  by  sat  one  who  had  been  among  the 
bravest  soldiers  in  the  army  of  the  Revolution.  He  had  been 
a  special  favorite  of  Washington.  He  had  abandoned  his  col- 
lege life  to  draw  a  sword  for  liberty.  He  had  fallen  seriously 
wounded  in  leading  the  advance  up  the  heights  of  Flatbush  at 
the  battle  of  Long  Island.  He  had  become  a  soldier  of  tlie 
cros?i,  a  standard-bearer  in  the  army  of  the  Lord,  a  faithful 
Methodist  preacher,  the  builder  of  and  the  first  to  preach  in 
our  Forsyth  Street  Church — that  man  of  blessed  memory, 
Tlioraas  Morrell. 

At  the  table  of  the  secretary  sat  one  whose  name  and  fame 
will  go  ringing  down  the  ages  so  long  as  the  history  of  the 
Methodist  Book  Concern  shall  be  read.  He  had  been  the  honor 
man  in  his  class  at  Eton  College,  and  from  his  entrance  upon 
his  work  as  a  Methodist  preacher  in  this  country  had  stood  in 
the  front  rank  of  that  brave  and  brotherly  host.  He  was  among 
those  who  sat  in  the  Christmas  Conference,  where  he  was  a 
leader  in  every  debate.  He  made  the  motion  that  gave  to  our 
Ciiurch  the  name  of  Methodist  Episcopal.  Asbury  said  of  him  : 
"He  is  a  man  of  great  piety,  great  skill  in  learning,  drinks  in 
Greek  and  Latin  swiftly,  yet  prays  much,  and  walks  close  with 
God."  The  Minutes  said  of  him  when  he  died  :  "  He  was  one 
of  the  gi-catest  characters  that  ever  graced  the  pulpit  or  adorned 


68  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

tlie  society  of  the  Methodists."  Such  was  John  Diekins,  then 
at  the  age  of  forty-three.  "Time  would  fail  me  to  tell"  of 
Phoebus  and  Cloud,  of  Durliam  and  Willis  and  McClaskej  and 
others  of  that  memorable  Conference  of  one  hundred  years  ago. 
O  rare  and  sacred  fellowship !  Like  the  disciples  in  the 
Jerusalem  chamber,  they  were  of  one  accord.  They  were  the 
immediate  founders  of  the  Methodist  Book  Concern.  Three 
great  events  distinguished  the  proceedings  of  that  Conference. 

1.  It  was  the  first  religious  body  to  extend  congratulations 
to  George  Washington,  who  had  then  just  been  inaugurated 
the  first  President  of  the  United  States. 

2.  It  commissioned  Jesse  Lee  as  the  apostle  of  Methodism  to 
New  England. 

3.  It  established  the  Methodist  Book  Concern.  Thomas 
Coke,  in  writing  of  that  remarkable  Conference,  said  :  "  It  was 
all  peace  and  concord.  Glory !  glory  be  to  God !  "We  have 
now  settled  our  printing  business."  It  was  an  easy  thing  to 
resolve  unanimously,  as  they  did,  that  the  Book  Concern  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  should  be  established  on  a  secure 
basis  and  on  a  large  scale  ;  that  the  profits  of  the  books  should 
be  applied  "  partlj'  to  finish  and  pay  off  the  debt  on  Cokesbury 
College  and  partly  to  establish  missions  and  schools  among  the 
Indians  ;  "  but  where  was  the  capital  to  come  from  with  which 
to  initiate  the  great  undertaking  ? 

The  Conference,  as  a  committee  of  the  whole,  were  almost  in 
despair  as  they  considered  the  deep  poverty  of  themselves  and 
the  societies  scattered  through  the  country.  Up  rose  John 
Diekins  and  said:  "  Brethren,  be  of  good  courage  and  go  for- 
ward ;  I  have  one  hundred  and  twenty  pounds  sterling  ($600), 
the  savings  from  my  life's  labors.  I  will  lend  every  shilling 
of  it  to  the  Methodist  Book  Concern  until  such  time  as  it  can 
be  returned  to  me."     The  Conference  joyfully  and  gratefully 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERK  69 

accepted  the  loan,  and  by  unanimous  vote  elected  John  Dickins 
as  Book  Steward.  On  August  17,  1789,  at  No.  43  Fourth 
Street,  Philadelphia,  Jolin  Dickins  with  his  own  hand  made 
entry  of  the  first  transactions  of  tlie  Methodist  Book  Concern. 
The  first  book  issued  was  Wesley's  abridged  translation  of 
Tiiomas  k  Kenipis's  immortal  Imitation  of  Christ — a  good 
corner-stone  on  %vhich  to  build  the  ever-increasing  business  and 
world-wide  influence  of  our  publishing  house  whose  centenary 
we  this  nigiit  celebrate.  John  Dickins,  by  the  blessing  of  God 
upon  his  pioneer  labors,  started  a  series  of  influences  whose 
vibrations  reach  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  and  to  the 
latest  time.  All  honor  to  the  heroic  founders  of  the  Methodist 
Book  Concern !  By  the  memories  of  their  lives  and  deeds, 
by  all  the  impulse  and  inspiration  of  the  present  hour,  by  the 
noblest  instincts  of  our  own  souls,  in  the  spirit  of  rejoicing  con- 
secration let  us,  who  are  honored  to  be  their  sons  and  daughters, 
be  faithful  to  our  magnificent  inheritance,  and  to  Him  whose 
sovereign  spirit  touches  our  souls  and  makes  our  hearts  glad  as  we 
stand  upon  the  threshold  of  a  new  century,  with  its  grander  work, 
w-ith  its  nobler  heroism,  and  its  assured  conquests;  and  may 
our  great  conquering  Church,  iu  all  its  revolving  cycles  of  his- 
tory, in  its  every  agency,  increasingly  have  for  its  inspiration 
that  blessed  assurance  which  gave  the  dying  Wesley  such  con- 
solation when  the  everlasting  sunrise  burst  in  upon  failing 
heart  and  flesh,  "  The  best  of  all  is,  God  is  with  us." 

J.  M.  Buckley,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  was  the  last  speaker.  His  sub- 
ject was  "Methodist  Literature." 

Dr.  Buckley's  Address. 

When  Methodism  arose  it  needed  a  literature  for  explana- 
tion,  for  dcjfense,  for  propagation,  and  for  instruction.  For 
explanation,  because  it  was  misunderstood  ;  for  defense,  be- 


70  CENTENNIAL   OF  THE 


cause  it  was  assaulted  and  traduced  ;  for  propagation,  because 
its  ministers  were  itinerant  and  the  supply  inadequate  to  the 
need ;  for  instruction,  because  its  converts  were  generally  un- 
educated, especially  in  the  principles  of  religion.  Nor  did  the 
need  diminish  as  the  denomination  grew  in  numbers,  activity, 
and  social  position.  An  illustration  from  a  later  period  may 
suffice.  At  first  it  affiliated  with  the  American  Tract  Society 
and  the  American  Sunday-School  Union  ;  but  their  publications 
were  exclusively  Calvinistic,  and  became  germs  of  doctrinal 
discord.  This  gave  rise  to  the  formation  of  our  own  Tract 
Society  and  Sunday-School  Union.  The  more  discussion,  the 
more  inquiry ;  hence  the  demand  for  publications  to  remove 
misunderstandings,  satisfy  curiosity,  and  unify  opinion. 

The  system  of  government  and  administration  is  complex, 
its  appointments  for  transient  periods,  its  Conferences  of  fre- 
quent occurrence.  Times  and  seasons  depending  upon  personal 
arrangement  are  liable  to  frequent  revision  and  change,  the 
usages  of  the  denomination  numerous  and  peculiar,  all  of  which 
required  communications  constant,  full,  and  authoritative  to 
both  pastors  aud  people.  Besides,  the  type  of  religious  ex- 
perience being  devotional  and  emotional  to  an  unusual  degree 
demanded  for  its  perpetuation  and  cultivation  an  unusual 
amount  of  easily-assimilated  religious  reading,  of  all  things  the 
most  difficult  to  produce  and  consequently  to  procure.  Method- 
ism was  compelled  to  create  from  its  indigenous  resources  the 
greater  part  of  its  essential  nutriment  for  the  spiritual  life,  and 
to  edit  what  it  reprinted  from  other  denominations.  Such 
supplies  were  all  the  more  important  because  of  the  great  use 
made  of  local  preachers,  the  ignorance  of  many  of  the  travel- 
ing preachers,  and  the  necessity  of  chiss-leaders,  all  of  whom 
were  required  to  give  instruction  in  spiritual  things. 

Another  function  subserved  by  Methodist  literature  was  to 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  71 

develop  a  class  of  competent  writers  and  to  aflford  them  a  mar- 
ket for  their  literary  products.  This  was  of  much  greater  im- 
portance in  the  beginning  than  it  is  now ;  for  Methodists,  ex- 
cept in  the  case  of  men  of  transcendent  intellect  and  conspicu- 
ous position,  were  ostracized,  or,  at  best,  satirized.  Also  print- 
ing and  publication  establishments  were  comparatively  few, 
and  access  to  the  people  was  correspondingly  difficult.  To-day 
Methodist  writers  of  ability  can  reach  the  best  minds  in  the  de- 
nomination and  the  public  at  large  through  magazines,  books, 
and  the  press  generally.  Nor  when  they  write  upon  general 
subjects  do  they  suffer  in  the  popular  estimate  materially  be- 
cause of  their  denominational  views  ;  gaining  sometimes  as  much 
consideration  from  publishers  and  editors  because  of  the  great 
constituency  supposed  to  be  interested  in  them  as  they  lose  in 
some  directions  because  of  the  monopoly  of  literary  culture 
which  certain  circles  still  affect,  it  being,  however,  rather  a 
reminiscence  than  an  actual  possession. 

Methodist  literature,  therefore,  naturally  classifies  itself. 
Its  most  conspicuous  function  is  to  furnish  regular  denomina- 
tional supplies ;  and,  if  we  construct  the  pyramid  philosoph- 
ically, at  the  base  are  the  doctrinal  works.  It  has  published 
and  kept  continually  on  hand  the  works  of  John  Wesley  ;  the 
American  edition  consisting  of  seven  volumes,  two  of  which 
comprise  the  sermons,  and  the  rest  miscellanies  ;  these  miscel- 
laneous works  are  paralleled  in  interest  only  by  Boswell's  Life 
of  Johnson,  between  which  there  is  vastly  more  similarity  than 
any  who  have  not  critically  read  both  would  imagine.  Wat- 
son's Institutes  and  sermons,  the  former,  subject  to  proper 
deduction  for  the  errors  of  his  time,  illustrating  in  a  high  de- 
gree Emerson's  idea  of  good  writing,  which  is,  "  to  see  clearly 
and  state  lucidly."  Fletcher's  Checks  and  Miscellaneous 
Writings,  useful  to  a  past  generation  of  Methodists,  are  by  no 


72  CENTENNIAL    OF   THE 

means  obsolete  yet ;  and  Pope's  great,  tliongh  pecnliar,  work 
npon  Theology. 

Of  commentaries  it  has  produced  a  host,  Benson,  once 
widely  used.  Adam  Clarke,  unabi-idged,  in  six  sturdy  vol- 
umes ;  abridged,  and  with  a  new  personality  introduced  by 
Daniel  Curry.  Whedon's  Commentary,  containing  as  its  pre- 
siding genius  the  best  tliought  of  the  acute  and  vigorous  intel- 
lect of  its  editor ;  the  painstaking  work  of  a  Hunter ;  the  last 
great  work  of  a  Newhall ;  the  scholarly  annotations  of  Pro- 
fessor Terry ;  besides  excellent  work  by  Drs.  Daniel  Steele, 
J.  K.  Burr,  A.  B.  Hyde,  Henry  Bannister,  F.  D.  Hemenway, 
and  F.  G.  Hibbard.  Nor  must  I  forget  the  work  to  which 
thousands  of  ministers  and  laymen  in  the  prime  of  life  ewe  so 
much  for  instruction  received  in  the  formative  period.  Long- 
king's  JV^otes  on  the  Gospels,  which  had  a  definiteness  and 
gi-asp  not  always  found  in  more  modern  publications. 

Speaking  generally,  we  may  say  that  the  Book  Concern  has 
published  a  large  majority  of  the  works  included  in  the  Con- 
ference Studies  ordered  by  the  Bishops,  under  the  instruction 
of  the  General  Conference,  to  be  used  by  the  local  and  travel- 
ing ministers  in  preparation  for  the  examinations  on  whicli 
their  promotion  and  ordination  depend.  Akin  to  these  works 
are  the  great  histories  by  whicli  it  is  possible  for  succeeding 
generations  to  say  reverently,  "  We  have  heard  with  our  ears, 
O  Lord  ;  our  fathers  have  told  us  what  works  thou  didst  in 
their  days,  in  the  times  of  old."  Of  these,  that  of  jSTathan 
Bangs  is  forcible  because  he  was  so  great  a  part  of  what  he  de- 
scribes; while  the  more  elaborate,  artistic,  and  jubilant  vol- 
umes of  Abel  Stevens  remain  as  a  priceless  possession,  having 
the  power  of  instruction,  and  at  the  same  time  stimulating  to  a 
holy  imitation  and  emulation  the  hearts  of  those  who  read 
them.     Besides  these  there  are  many  local  histories  and  abridge- 


METE0DI8T  BOOK  CONCERN.  78 


inents  wliich  have  done   for  the  denomination  what  similar 
works  do  for  the  country. 

In  the  domain  of  hiography  tlie  productions  of  Metliodisni 
have  been  numerous,  and  the  sales  immense  in  the  aggregate. 
Nor  is  it  possible  to  overestimate  the  beneficent  influence  of 
properly  written  religious  biographies.  Of  course,  discrimi- 
nating persons  know  that  absolutely  truthful  biographies  are 
not  written,  because  of  the  limitations  of  human  nature  as  to 
knowledge,  space,  and  the  effects  of  personal  bias.  But  they 
perpetuate  ideals  and  furnish  inspiring  models ;  and  in  relig- 
ious biographies,  if  the  type  of  excellence  sometimes  discour- 
ages, it  may  tend  to  the  natural  working  out  of  what  is 
possible  to  the  reader,  even  though  he  loses  all  hope  of  be- 
coming exactly  what  he  admires  in  the  portraiture  before  him. 
AVhen  the  biography  is  that  of  a  person  with  whom  we  have 
been  contemporaneous,  its  intellectual  effect  is  not  to  be 
despised,  for  the  mind  continually  compares  its  own  impres- 
sions with  the  lineaments  depicted  upon  the  page. 

Meanwhile  stupendous  masses  of  Salhath-school  literature  of 
the  most  varying  degrees  of  ability,  from  the  highest  to  such 
as  on  another  occasion  it  would  be  proper  to  criticise  adversely, 
liave  been  poured  forth,  teaching  the  yonng  idea  how  to  shoot, 
sometimes  at  a  mark,  sometimes  without  a  mark,  but  upon  the 
whole  much  better  adapted  to  the  purpose  than  would  result 
from  promiscuous  selections. 

The  periodical  literature  of  the  Church  deserves  separate 
treatment.  The  Methodist  Magazine  is  not  known  to  the 
])resent  generation,  and,  when  taken  from  the  shelves  where  it 
has  reposed  by  the  grandchildren  of  those  who  read  it,  its  con- 
tents seem  singularly  dry,  and  remote  from  the  spirit  of  this 
age.  Tliis  impression,  however,  passes  away  when  the  time 
that  it  appeared  and  its  purpose  are  taken  into  the  account.     It 


H  CENTENNIAL    OF   THE 

gave  place  to  tlie  Quarterly  Review,  wliicb,  after  various  mu- 
tations, under  tlie  universally  accomplished  McCIintock,  the 
subtle,  tenacious,  witty,  and  versatile  Wiiedon,  and  the  intel- 
lectually athletic  yet  agile  Curry,  is  at  the  present  tiuie,  as  a 
bimonthly,  under  the  editorship  of  Dr.  Mendenliall,  enjoying  a 
larger  circulation  than  it  ever  had,  and,  being  in  the  midst  of 
an  unfinished  polemical  conflict  upon  recondite  principles  of 
criticism,  is  attracting  more  attention  than  has  been  given  to  it 
for  many  years.  The  Ladies'  Repository,  begun  before  the 
great  development  of  magazine  literature,  for  a  number  of 
years  filled  an  important  place ;  but  restricted  in  competition 
with  outside  enterprise,  and  modified  by  the  changed  relation 
of  women  to  society  and  to  public  discussion,  gradually  de- 
clined. Prior  to  this  period  the  attempt  had  been  made  to 
publish  a  general  magazine,  under  the  name  of  the  National 
Magazine.  As  might  have  been  foreseen,  this  periodical 
failed,  not  for  want  of  ability  in  its  editor,  nor,  speaking 
generally,  in  its  contributors,  but  for  want  of  adaptability. 
The  demand  for  it,  as  it  was,  was  not  sufiicient,  and  it  was  not 
available  as  a  supply  for  a  different  demand.  The  transform- 
ing of  the  Ladies'  depository  into  the  National  Repository 
was  another  attempt  of  a  denominational  publishing  house  to 
furnish  a  popular  magazine  regardless  of  past  experiences, 
handicapped  with  fatal  defects  and  incompetences,  in  compe- 
tition with  the  most  extraordinary  development  of  modern 
times,  sustained  by  lavish  outlays,  catering  to  every  taste,  and 
managed  with  consummate  ability,  paid  for  on  a  scale  that 
would  be  destructive  to  the  necessary  simplicity  of  a  religious 
management. 

Tiie  weekly  periodicals  of  the  Church  are  in  their  circulation 
the  admiration  of  the  religious  world,  and  as  they  are  so  fre- 
quently seen  must  be  left  to  speak  for  themselves.     It  is  sufli- 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN.  75 

cient  to  affirm  that  without  tliem  it  would  be  impossible  to 
carry  forward  the  work  of  the  Church  efficiently,  and  if  left  ex- 
clusively to  undenominational  or  private  supplies  a  plentiful 
sowing  of  dragon's  teeth  would  be  likely.  The  existence  of 
unofficial  and  undenominational  publications,  and  the  freedom 
of  speech  exercised,  and  consequent  diversity  of  opinions  held 
by  the  raanagement  of  the  official  press  upon  all  subjects  ex- 
cept the  fundamentals  of  Methodism,  make  it  certain  that 
every  thing  that  should  be  will  be  heard. 

The  limitations  of  a  denominational  literature  are  that  the 
general  public  will  invariably  consider  the  institution  a  part 
of  Methodist  machinery,  and  infer,  therefore,  tliat  what  it  pub- 
lislies  is  primarily  for  the  use  of  Methodists,  and  its  imprint 
will  constantly  confirm  tliat  impression.  So  that,  from  a  com- 
mercial point  of  view,  what  is  its  chief  strength  is  of  necessity 
an  element  of  restriction.  Of  course,  all  works  of  fiction  of  a 
purel}'  sentimental  character,  especially  those  that  are  sensa- 
tional, and  whose  sales  run  up  into  tlie  hundreds  of  thousands, 
are  excluded  from  the  list ;  and  the  notoriety,  not  to  say  fame, 
which  the  house  would  obtain  by  their  publication,  and  which 
is  of  immense  business  value  to  many  other  houses,  is  not 
within  the  reach  of  the  Book  Concern.  No  intelligent  person, 
however,  regards  what  is  essential  to  the  accomplishment  of 
the  end  he  has  in  view  in  the  light  of  an  undesirable  limita- 
tion. 

Naturally  the  demands  of  its  customers  would  lead  it  to  a 
considerable  extent  into  the  general  book  trade;  and  it  has 
published,  in  the  aggregate,  an  immense  number  of  works  of 
travel,  harmless  fiction,  general  biography,  history,  science,  and 
has  done  a  large  amount  of  business  of  which  the  Chautauqua 
publications  may  serve  sis  an  illustration.  The  number  of 
works    in    its  General  Catalogue  is   several  thousand,  many 


76  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

of  which  are  of  the  liighest  grade  intellectually.  The  travels 
of  Dr.  Durbin  and  the  works  of  Stephen  Olin  in  their  time  at- 
tracted great  attention,  as  did  Thomson's  Essays:  Educa- 
tional^ Morale  and  Religious,  and  his  Evidences  of  Religion. 

Whedon  On  the  Will,  by  the  comparatively  few  who  were 
competent  to  comprehend  it,  and  patient  enough  to  read  it,  has 
been  placed  upon  the  shelf  by  the  side  of  that  most  potential 
work,  On  the  Will,  by  Jonathan  Edwards,  as  representing  a 
battle  of  two  scliools  and  two  intellectual  giants. 

Among  the  more  recent  works  which  have  attained  a  higli 
place  are  Hurst's  History  of  Rationalism,  and  Bihliotheca 
Theologica,  notably  Harmon's  Introduction  to  the  Study  of 
the  Scri/ptiires,  Terry's  Ilermeneutics,  and  Professor  Bennett's 
great  work  on  Christian  Archceulogy.  Professor  Bowne  lirst 
commanded  attention  by  his  Philosophy  of  Herbert  Spencer 
and  Studies  in  Theism.  Mrs.  Amelia  E.  Barr,  continually 
increasing  in  reputation  as  a  writer  in  pure  fiction,  i-eached  a 
large  constituency  of  readers  through  three  of  her  stories  pub- 
lislied  by  this  house.  Many  other  entertaining  and  elevating 
romances  for  the  young  have  been  brought  out,  of  which 
A  Damsel  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  by  Miss  Xorris  is  a  type 
of  the  best.  Nor  should  the  great  work  of  Dr.  Dorchester, 
Christianity  in  the  United  States  from  the  First  Settlement 
Down  to  the  Present  Time,  and  that  smaller  but  very  impor- 
tant publication  by  the  same  author,  The  Problem  of  Religious 
Progress,  be  omitted.  The  house  is  at  the  present  time  en- 
gaged in  publishing  the  life  work  of  Bishop  Foster  in  a  series  of 
volumes  upon  Theology,  which,  if  completed  according  to  the 
plan,  will  constitute  a  library  in  themselves.  ISTot  in  the  whole 
course  of  its  history  has  it  published  works  of  a  higher  grade 
intellectually  and  critically  than  within  the  past  few  years. 

Ready  to  adapt  itself  to  modern  methods,  it  established  a 


METHODIST  BOOK  CONGERK  77 

Subscription-Book  Department,  tlirongh  Avliicli  an  immense 
number  of  most  useful  books  have  been  sold.  The  People's 
Cyclopedia,  which  is  being  constantly  revised,  and  lias  received 
the  highest  commendation  and  very  little  adverse  criticism,  of 
wliich  so  far  as  true  its  editors  availed  themselves  at  once,  cor 
recting  the  erroi-s  and  supplying  the  defects  pointed  out,  has 
already  reached  the  enormous  sale  of  one  hundred  and  two 
thousand  copies,  which  at  the  ordinary  retail  price  would 
amount  to  $1,550,000. 

Since  the  purchase  of  the  plates  of  Ridpath's  History  of  the 
United  States  one  hnndred  and  fifty  thousand  copies  have 
been  sold,  while  his  History  of  the  World,  more  recently  pub- 
lished, has  reached  a  sale  of  sixty-five  thousand,  which,  in  the 
absence  of  more  elaborate  works,  is  useful  to  the  ]:)eople.  Dr^ 
Dorchester's  book  on  the  Liquor  Problem  has  had  a  wide  sale 
through  the  eame  department,  and  at  the  present  time  the 
People's  Cyclopedia,  Histcry  of  the  World,  and  of  the  United 
States,  each  average  a  sale  of  nearly  one  thousand  copies  per 
month. 

For  a  hundred  years  Methodism  has  kept  its  presses  at  work. 
You  have  already  heard  from  the  senior  Agent  something  of 
the  extent  of  the  business.  In  all  these  years  nothing  irre- 
jigious  has  been  prmted ;  nothing  inmioral ;  every  thing 
adapted  to  promote  the  interests  of  the  country  and  of  the 
individual  citizen.  Successive  generations  of  Methodist  wi-itors 
liave  been  raised  up  under  the  influence  of  the  spirit  of  Meth- 
odist literature.  Many  of  them  are  still  in  the  denomination; 
and  men  of  brilliant  qualities  and  attainments,  who  fill  iin- 
jKjrtant  .spheres  connected  with  other  denominations,  or  of 
a  purely  literary  character,  are  sons  and  grandsons  of  those 
M'ho  were  educated  chiefly  through  the  influence  of  Meth- 
odist literature,  without  which,  and   the  moral  effects  of  its 


78  CENTENNIAL    OF  THE 

religions  services,  they  miglit  liave  been  in  ignorance  and 
obscurity. 

It  is  this  literature  which  tills  seminaries  and  colleges  willi 
students.  AVithout  it  those  M^ho  direct  the  education  of  tlie 
young  wonld  either  have  no  interest  in  intellectual  culture, 
or  divert  those  whom  they  influenced  to  other  sources  of 
instruction. 

But  perhaps  the  greatest  work  accomplished  by  Methodist 
literature  has  been  to  counteract  the  natural  tendencies  of 
strong  religious  emotion  to  fanaticism.  Without  it  the  holy 
fervor  inspired  by  the  iii'st  preachers  would  have  run  into 
excesses  pernicious  to  the  mind  and  heart  and  the  body,  and 
instead  of  being  to-day  coherent,  progressive,  and  stable, 
Methodism  would  be  dead  or  dying. 


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